Daiwa/Hobie BREAM Kayak Series - Round 11, Forster

A late decision was made last week to head up to Forster on the NSW mid north coast to fish round 11 of the 2013 Daiwa/Hobie kayak series on the 4th and 5th of May.

Its been 2 years since i last visited this fantastic fishery so Geoff Alford and myself made our way up on the Friday morning and drove pretty much non stop for most of the day arriving late afternoon.

We spent the afternoon rigging our rods and preparing the kayaks for the morning and after a very restless night the alarm finally went off and it was game on, finally the time had come.

I had a firm plan mapped out with GPS marks from my previous trips and once my number was called i headed straight for mark number one in some pretty nasty looking oyster racks.

I didnt get much action there so i moved on to my second mark which is a series of rock bars located within 10 metres of some more oyster racks, where i found the run out tide pushing up and over the rocks.

I sat at the back of them facing into the current and casting to the rocks and after a couple of casts i got my first fish in the livewell followed shortly after by a slightly bigger fish.

That was all i managed from that spot so i moved on to the next which is a similar set of rock bars but this particular location has given me my best fish on each visit to Forster.

It didnt take long to get a fish follow my Lucky Craft NW pencil out from the rocks, but with no take. So i put the lure back into the rocks and immediately a bow wave appeared behind the lure and this time it took the lure and the hooks connected.

At first i called it for a small fish, but as i applied some pressure it took off back towards the oyster covered rocks, luckily i was using my 1-5kg Duffrod which was specifically designed to fish oyster racks so i was able to put enough power in to get the fish away from the rocks and into clear water away from the nasty oysters.

After what seemed like an eternity i managed to get the net under him and into the kayak and he measured a respectable 37cm to the fork and weighed in at 1.04kg which earned me the Boss Hog big bream cash prize by 10 grams.

Only a couple of minutes later i managed to pull another fish not much smaller from nearby and then decided to leave the area and hope for some more good fish on day 2.

I was really expecting to be placed near the top, knowing what Forster can produce when it comes to big bream, but to my surprise my fished weighed in at 2.78kg and had me in 1st place at the end of day 1.

I decided to stick to the same plan on day 2 and put in some time at the same spot i pulled the 2 biggest bream from since i purposely left the area after only a short period of time on day 1 hoping i left some big bream untouched the the last half of the tournament.

As it turned out, the fishing was very tough on day 2 for a lot of anglers, myself included and i only managed 1 small but legal bream from my spot, and pulled another from another location and it was all i could manage for the entire day.

Knowing i would need another bag similar to the day 1 bag with the quality field of anglers i was up against, my hopes of 2 wins in a row were dashed and i headed in with only half of my possible 4 fish limit and slipped down to 6th place in a 60+ angler field, which i am still very happy with.

I did however, have an amazing weekend which i enjoyed very much and got to catch up with some good friends and catch some quality fish which is always good.

The next round see's me travel to Sydney's George's river in a couple of weeks, stay tuned for the report from that round.

Gamakatsu Hobie fishing series - R3 Clyde River

Perfect weather conditions greeted us for round 3 of the Gamakatsu Hobie kayak fishing series at Batemans Bay on the Beautiful Clyde river.

Being my local river system and with an ideal tide suited for some rack fishing, i had my mind made up where i was going to target big fish for the tournament  weeks in advance which is only a short  1klm pedal from the start line.

The tide was a little lower than i expected but i just made some changes to my lure selections and decided to fish the area as i waited for the tide to come in more rather than head for a new location.

Things started off a little slow, with only a few undersized fish in the first two hours but i was confident my patience would pay off if i kept at it waiting for the change of tide, as the Clyde racks fish better at the start of a run out tide. I pointed the front of the kayak into the current and used the Mirage Drive to hold position rather than use the stake out pole, casting into the current and working the lure back with the flow.

I got my first legal fish at around 9:00am and really struggled to find the decent fish that were so willing to take my lures in the weeks leading up to the event. At around midday, i hit a hot patch and quickly landed two more legals to fill my limit, and then an upgrade shortly after which measured 33cm to the fork that i spotted near an oyster covered rock pile.

I worked the area with my surface lures, a Lucky Craft NW Pencil, and a O.S.P Bent Minnow, fishing them super slow and thirty minutes later secured my second upgrade which was only slightly smaller than my biggest fish.

I dropped quite a few fish throughout the day, and had follows by good fish that decided not to take my offerings, but despite my best effort and hitting all of my favourite spots nearby i couldn’t upgrade my smallest fish.

The quality of fish i had been catching over the past few weeks left me thinking i didn’t have enough to get a win, but i knew it would be enough to be at the very least in the top 5, especially with anglers like Stewart Dunn, Andrew death, Derek Steele, Dave Hedge and Steve Fields who are all very capable of landing big fish amongst the competition.

Once time was up, i landed back at the beach to find reports of a lot of empty livewell’s, but after speaking to Stewie, he informed me Andrew Death had a kilo plus fish in the well, but that was the only fish. But knowing Andrew, i thought he would get his last 2 fish to fill his limit.

Andrew came in and to my suprise only had one extra small bream to add to his big bream (which weighed 1.2kg and scored him the big bream cash prize).

As it turned out, i weighed in a total of 1.95kg for my 3 fish earning me 1^st place, which put me 400 grams clear of Andrew Death in 2^nd place with 1.55kg for his 2 fish.

2^nd place was enough to earn Andrew a spot in the 2013 Daiwa/Hobie bream kayak series which is to be held at Marlo, Vic. in November.

I would like to thank my sponsors for their support over the past couple of years

Steve Duff from Duffrods, Steve’s rods are simply awesome and the Tournament Pro Racks rod was really what was needed on the day. I fished oyster racks and oyster covered rocks all day and they gave me the power in the rod to really muscle these fish away from the structure and into the net with complete confidence.

Check out the Duffrods range at www.duffrods.com.au

Dave from Evolution Jigheads, Evo Jigheads have given me the option to put my hooks at the back of the plastics, reducing the number of missed fish to short strikes and leader protection for when the dreaded flathead take a liking to my plastics

www.evolutionjigheads.com

Bryan from EJ Todd fishing solutions who supply me with all of my favourite lures, braid, and leader

Check out the Lucky Craft and Maria lures, as well as the Sunline braid and Flurocarbon leaders at your local tackle store.

Thank you all for your support

Thanks to Steve and the team at Hobie for bringing these kayak events to us. Without their hard work and dedication to the sport of kayak fishing tournaments we we not have these events at all

Tackle used:

Rods – Duffrods tournament pro rack 1-5kg, 6’10

             Duffrods tournament pro rack 1-5kg, 7’0

             Duffrods tournament pro bream 1-4kg 7’0

             Duffrods tournament pro flats 1-3kg, 7’6

Reels – Daiwa Exist 2004

              Daiwa Exist Hyper Branzino

              Daiwa Steez 2004

              Daiwa Steez 2506

Lures -  Lucky Craft NW Pencil

              Lucky Craft Bevy minnow

              OSP Bent minnow

Line -  Sunline Rockfish PE braid on all reels

            Sunline FC rock fluorocarbon leader

GAMAKATSU HOBIE FISHING SERIES R2 - ST.GEORGES BASIN

CUSTOM LURE ART pro team member Stewart Dunn has notched up another win for the CLA team.

Stewart fished deep with blades where he found big fish schooled up on his sounder that were willing to take his lures.
Stewart compiled a bag of 3 good fish weighing 2.72kg putting him on top of the field of 43 anglers

For a full report and photo's visit: http://hobiefishing.com.au/content/ghfs-st-georges-basin-report

DAIWA/HOBIE BREAM KAYAK SERIES R3 - BEMM RIVER

CUSTOM LURE ART pro team member Jon Chen held on to his day 1 lead with a combined 2 day bag limit of 5.28 kg to take the win over Steve Fields from Hobie.

Jon fished a custom painted Pontoon 21 CrackJack and a Pontoon 21 Greedy Guts around the drop offs to secure his bigger fish.

Jon's full report can be found here: Bemm river result and story

DAIWA/HOBIE BASS KAYAK SERIES - 2013

In addition to the Daiwa/Hobie BREAM kayak series, Sponsors and organisers have introduced a BASS series for 2013.

Like the inaugural BREAM series, the 2013 BASS series will consist of 4 qualifying rounds and a Grand final. Steve Fields from Hobie has indicated if competitor numbers are satisfactory the series will continue in 2014 and beyond so i urge anyone that owns a kayak (or can at least borrow one) to get involved and test your skills against like minded anglers.

The setup is fairly simple, it is a catch, photo, release competition so there is no need for a livewell, just a camera with a SD card is all that is needed.
More details can be found on the Hobie fishing website: www.hobiefishing.com.au

Next weekend (Saturday 9th of Feb) is the first round of the series on the NSW south coast just north of Bega.

Keep an eye on the Hobie Fishing website for future events and live stream viewing of the weigh ins for the Bream and Bass events.

Snowy Mountains Troutfest 2012 - Big Gee Report

Troutfest

As previously reported on another thread, I spent my (almost) usual full week at Troutfest this year, again based at Eucumbene and received constant reports from mates and colleagues fishing Jindabyne.

Boat

Used the Von Gee "E" Boat for the comp.   

Von Gee "E" Boat

Crew

I fished the whole week with one of the best blokes in the world, my great mate "Haytch". He'd been my Best Man about a thousand years ago and oh boy how I wish he lived closer to the hub so we could spend more time fishing together. He currently resides in Alice Springs with his lovely lady.

Weather: Surprisingly warm for the first week in November but at times had its bite. It was VERY windy daily and on the odd occasion a good 1 - at times 2 meter swell. Having heard that yet another fisherman had been lost on the big lake a week or so before - the poor soul just surfaced and his body recovered a few days ago - we were reminded of what Eucumbene can do. Practically every day had times that could have turned nasty for anyone.

Therefore, even though we were in the Von Gee "E" Boat, which is over the minimum 4.5 m for compulsory Life Jacket wearing on Alpine Lakes, we elected to wear life jackets at all times.

Pre Tournament Intel Report:

I'd been told that the region has unexplainedly been fishing really hard lately - being the last month or so, oddly for the first time I can remember, more Browns were caught than Rainbows during Troutfest. This applied to both Eucumbene and Jindabyne - everyone was at a loss as to where all the Rainbows were.

We also heard upon arrival at our accommodation, Angler's Reach Lakeside Village run by Fiona and Paul McNiff (no affiliation but very highly recommended), Fiona told us that a 1.25 meter Brown weighing a whopping 27 pound had been caught just up the road at Providence in the last week. We never saw any evidence of the fish but I'm sure it would have happened. Never heard of a Trout that big in the Alpine lakes .... that's just sick big.

So we thought it could be feast or famine this year. How true that was to turn out to be.

The Fishing

We'd entered the Trolling and Soft Plastics categories as I had done last year and quite successfully at that.

Those that know me know I prefer to troll for trout using Surface Lines early and then Leadcore later in the day. Too lazy to use a downrigger and besides, I sold mine with the last boat. All too often I use Winged Lures, either Tassie Devils or Lofty's but the occasional Sting gets a swim also. There was no stand out lure this year at all. Practically anything worked but at the most odd times.

Day 1 and we were on fire. Right from the ultra early pre-dawn light we were onto fish. Oddly, one of only 5 Rainbows that we caught for the WEEK (usually I get that many a session) was caught at this time. As we only had to weigh two fish in for the trolling category daily, one Brown and one Rainbow. All fish were kept alive in the LiveWell , just in case of upgrades etc etc. That way we didn't end up with a thousand fish to take home, which is illegal in any case.This was at a place on the lake called "Springwood". By 0840 we'd actually caught our day's bag limit. So the rest of the day was going to be experimenting and well ... the rest of the tournament was going to be a breeze if it fished like this every day!

....... But it didn't.

The rest of the full week was comparatively bloody awful for us in fishing terms. Some days we really struggled despite pulling out every trick I knew.

I think we saw about 60% of the lake in our efforts and spent almost a whole day in the Providence Arm for no return.

At one point, the first cast of the day of a Soft Plastic for me must have just about brained the big old Brown that took it. After a short fight and a HUGE aerial display of leaps and "I dont want to be here" runs on the line the fish dislodged. Probably my bad to be honest, just one time where the line slackened during a leap. "Never mind ... its going to be great on SP's if its like this Haytch!"

........ But it wasn't

We cast my very best plastics in some of the most fishy looking water you've ever seen, when the wind allowed, for only a couple of bumps for the entire week. This is largely owing to the fact that a 25 - 40 kt daily NorWester smashed us and on two of those days 5 inches of rain decided to deposit itself on us. Great stuff in an open boat, Goretex or no Goretex.

Oddly on the most miserable day, we landed only one fish, a good Brown of about 1380 grams. Nowhere near a winner for this comp though.

Haytch with one of our better fish - I didnt take many photos

We did see three kayakers over the week doing it really hard in the conditions. Two guys in Outbacks that seemed absolutely miles from anywhere. I even pulled up next to one guy to give the poor bugger a rest from pedalling like mad in the wind and swell and even gave him one of my most productive lures for the week. I actually thought he was dressed inappropriately for the mountains, buggered and dead set freezing. Who the hell wears shorts on an Alpine Lake for goodness sake? Especially just coming out of winter in the early Spring. He appreciated the lure but I really dont think he got to tie it on, it was just too rough.

Another chap we saw in Hobie PA14, again doing it hard in the rubbish swell but seemed happy enough. Didn't get to chat.

On one day one of my mates and trout fishing sensei John D with his ever present trusty offsider for Troutfest Hal, popped over from his base in Jindabyne to share stories, lies and hot dogs. He had absolutely smashed a morning session down at Buckenderra with some quality Browns in his boat "Obsessive Compulsive". There were great looking fish to about 1600 grams.

Oh, and he caught a Yabby while trolling   :

JD Mega Yabby

Thought it was a stick. I told him he should have made a nice Mornay sauce and baked the thing.

As John was cleaning his catch while we were enjoying Hot Dogs provided by the boys (thanks again Hal and John), we observed one large Brown had 5 fully intact larger that normal yabbies on board, one was still moving. It also had a MASSIVE claw passing through its lower extremity and surely it killed itself on John's line instead of splitting itself in half passing that thing.  

We still caught a hell of a lot of fish above and below the tournament weigh in size of 35cms though, especially Browns. Just no trophies this time for Gee and Haytch. Still ... a week fishing with a mate is better than a week working.  

The best fish caught at Troutfest were either on bait or using highly "dangerous" tactics in terms of losing Hard Body lures (trolling through trees apparently). From memory the best Brown this year went to a Buckenderra based angler with a 3.8kg model and the best Rainbow a massive 1.9 Kg from Jindabyne. Final results are not on the website at the time of this writing.

Thanks for reading.

Gee

HOT SURFACE BITE IN THE LOCAL

With beautiful weather forecast for today, my friend Steve and i loaded up the Hobie's and headed down to the local lake to see what the surface action would be like after recent warm spring temperatures moved in on the South Coast.

On my first cast this morning with a Lucky Craft NW pencil, i hooked and landed the first fish of the day, a 30cm Whiting. Although it was small, the signs looked good for a good day on the water.

As it turned out, it was one of the better sessions i have had for a while, just about every cast was getting followed and most of those fish were striking at the lure.
I did seem to drop a lot more fish than usual, but we both landed a heap as well, i honestly have no idea exactly how many Whiting came in, well over 20 along with 6 Bream and a few Flathead as well, all but one came on the NW pencil's, the odd one out was the biggest Bream of the session measuring 35cm caught on a Lucky Craft Bevy Minnow.

It was a great day, only lasting a few hours but things are looking good for a great summer of topwater fishing, if im lucky i may even get a mid week session or 2 in.

Thanks for reading