Clarence River Bream Super Series

What a great weekend at a great location! I especially like fishing this event because it is such a magnificent waterway and with every cast there is the feeling that you could hook up to a monster bream.

The Berkley team got together on Thursday night for a drink before the briefing. It was great to meet up with all the guys and swap ideas on tackle and techniques for the weekend, and discuss where the fish might be.

Day One
The first day of the comp went ok for me. I spent most of the session at Browns Rocks and landed about 10 legal bream for the day mostly using the 2” Shrimp in the new Banana Prawn colour. I was rigging those on 1/12Oz Nitro Bream Finesse heads in size 1. Later in the session I started playing with blades and upgraded three fish with the largest a 29.5cm caught on a flat above Maclean.

Back at the weigh in, the scales hit just 2.42kg. But everyone was talking about Steve Morgan’s massive 4.15kg bag including a couple of fish over a kilo. A couple of the Berkley team did well with Andrew Homann and Nigel Webster weighing 3kg.

Day two, I knew I’d need over 3kg to make the cut, but it never really looked like happening. My plan was to get my five at Browns early and then head upstream looking for upgrades on the banks. Well, it took ‘till about midday before I got my bag, and I stuck it out on browns nearly all session, upgrading just once with a 26.5cm so I could release a just legal 25cm. Back at the weigh in the scales hit 2.2kg giving me a total weight of 4.6kg, which eventually placed me in 18th.

There were mixed results for the Berkley team with Britto and Wishey struggling to fill their bags on the second day. The Wizard struggled all weekend. Russ Babekuhl caught plenty of fish but couldn’t find the big ones and placed 20th overall. Mango had a better second day with 2.6kg, but after his ordinary first day it wasn’t enough to make the cut, but enough to beat me by 20grams! Travis Davies got a respectable 2.61kg bag, not quite enough to make the cut, placing 13th.

The Berkley guys who made it into the final day shoot out were Nige Webster and Andrew Homann. Nige had another solid day on Browns Rocks, but the most outstanding bag of the day went to Homer with a 4 keg bag cementing him no. 1. spot, with a kilo lead on the field!

After Blitzing day one, Steve Morgan struggled on day two after his motor broke down very early. Fortunately, Timmy met up with him around 11am, and as he already had his bag, they swapped boats allowing Steve to go on and catch three fish. Timmy still managed a couple of upgrades on electric only power in Steve’s boat!
Both of them managed to make the top ten, which also included, names like Andrew Howard, Daniel Brown, Ben Godfrey, Gav Dunne and Craig Simmons.

Day three dawned clear and bright with light winds early. From the start line at Maclean, five of the ten boats headed downstream and five up steam, highlighting how the fish were available right throughout the system, but the better concentrations of bigger fish either at the mouth or way upstream.

Nige Webster headed down the front to Middle Wall first and picked up some fish early before heading to Browns Rocks. Although he’d caught most of his fish there in the previous two days, it was very quiet on Sunday. Eventually he headed back down to Middle wall and managed to upgrade his entire bag in the last hour or so. Nige fished with Berkley Dropshot Pro tournament 7ft 1-3kg rods and ABU Cardinal 802 reels, 3lb Stren Microfuse and 4lb vanish leaders (2lb Microfuse/2lb vanish when the tide slowed). His gun lures were Gulp 2' Shrimp in Banana Prawn on Nitro Bream Finesse Jigheads from 1/12 to 1/6 Oz size 2 hooks. Nige's final weight was 8.43kg tieing for third, but slipped to fourth on a countback.

Homer stuck to his game plan and fished his productive banks upstream. This paid off with a final day bag of 3.69kg blowing the rest of the field away by nearly 2kg in total. Homer’s Tackle for the weekend consisted of a Pflueger Supreme 7’1” 2-4kg Rod matched with a Pfueger Supreme 8030 reel, spooled with 3lb Stren Microfuse line and 4lb Vanish leader. His lure of choice was the Gulp 2” Shrimp in the the new Banana Prawn colour rigged on a Nitro Bream Finesse jighead –weights 1/16th and 1/12th Oz on a size 1/0 hook. Homer’s tactics for the entire weekend involved fishing one 800m stretch of bank with the banana prawns, the bank had reasonable current and varied from 10 to 20 feet deep. Accurate casting tight to cover and allowing the shrimp to drift into and around snags was the key to his success. At the end of the bank was a flat that he fished with a Vx35 Blade, before heading back up to the start of his productive bank. He said he caught about 60 fish for the weekend, with 40 of them being legal size.

The Golden Child of bream fishing 'Ben Godfrey' took out second place for the weekend with the second largest bag on day three seeing him jump three or four spots. Ben fished the middle wall most of the weekend, tempting the bigger fish on larger lures like Gulp 3" shrimp and 4" minnows on big jigheads from 1/6 and 1/4Oz. Ben continues to climp the rankings chart at a rapid rate!

The Pure Fishing Team of Pro Breamers is in fine form, and have now taken out the three Bream Super Series events in 2008 with Russel winning Taree, Mango taking out Gippsland, and now Homer winning the Clarence!

And what do you do on the third day of a Bream Super Series if you don’t make the cut? Go Jewie fishing of course!!!!

I took out an old mate Robert Tombs, who was also keen to try and catch a Jew. Although we had heard that a few Jew had been taken at Middle Wall during the comp. We decided to hit Palmers Island wall so we wouldn’t get in the way of any competing breamers.

I’ve only ever caught a couple of Jewies on Soft Plastics before, both incidental catches while breaming. I’d also lost some good ones on bream gear that I couldn’t stop, including one at Maclean in the prefish. This time I rigged up spefically for the Jewies with a Berkley Dropshot 6-8kg rod matched to an ABU 804 spooled with 20lb fireline and a 40lb Vanish leader. I rigged up a Gulp 6” Grub in Sardine on a 5/8 Oz Saltwater Pro Head and I was ready to go.

Things were quiet for an hour or so, but right on the tide change, as I was hopping the grub along the bottom in about 35 foot of water when I hooked up to something solid. Initially I though I was snagged but then there were two head shakes before line slowly peeled off the reel. I was on!!!!!!!! The fish steadily peeled line as it headed upstream. I turned the boat towards the middle of the river and powered away on the electric motor to get away from the bank and reduce the chances of the fish finding anything to bust me off on.

The fished slugged it out deep and wasn’t willing to come out from the wall initially. It felt like a strong heavy fish, but it never took any blistering runs. There were plenty of tell tale Jewie headshakes which got the adrenaline pumping. After about five minutes I felt I had the fish under control and out of danger of busting me off. As I worked it closer to the boat I backed the drag off a little to reduce the chance of pulling hooks.

That first glimpse of a long silver shape materialising out of the depths always gets the heart pumping. Fortunately it didn’t play up at the boat. Rob picked up the Berkley net and said, “How am I going to fit it in this?” I said, “Just get the head and I’ll grab him.” Rob did a good job and I grabbed the frame of the net and lifted the fish aboard, Woooohooooooo!!!!!!!!

It was a very nice Jewie!! and a great feeling to have targeted it specifically and come up with such a great result so quickly. The jighead was firmly embedded deeply into the top of the jewies mouth and the leader was scuffed a fair bit by the Jewies sharp teeth. If I was fishing a lighter leader I may well have lost the fish.

I put the fish on the brag mat and it measured 101.5cm, I’m guessing the weight would have been just over 10kg.

I gave Rob my Jewie rod after that and rigged up the same plastic on a lighter rod. We fished on for another hour or so before deciding it was time to hit the road.

All in all, the Clarence trip was a great experience. Although I didn’t cross paths with any big bream this trip, I learnt a lot and had a good time socialising with the other Berkley Team guys. We shared a lot of ideas on baits, blades, jigs, and stingers, and we are getting improving in the development of some new and innovative products. The Jewie was certainly a bonus! I’m looking forward to the next bream comp and certainly looking forward to getting back to the Clarence next year!

Cheers,

Matt