Tournament fishing

Hi guys,

I recently competed in a Gamakatsu Teams Series bream tournament round, it was good, but the results weren't all too great, here is a report of our 1st prefish. The 2nd prefish and tournament day are going to follow, enjoy!

The 1st Prefish



It's a shame I got water on the lens, would've been a half decent photo!



At 6:15am, Saturday the 30th of May, I met my partner Vaughn Lewis at Forster boat harbour to prefish my local waterways for the upcoming Gamakatsu Teams Series round 6 at Wallis Lake, Forster. We arrived at a flat near Green Point at around 6:30am, we quickly had our rods in our hands and flinged out a cast onto the weedflats. Vaughn had a Ghost gill brown Atomic crank 38 mid rigged and I had a Cranka Crank in the "Pink Bitts" colour. It didn't take long (first cast!) until I had a fish fooled, without it pulling drag I knew it wasn't a decent fish, oh great, it's a bloody tailor. Vaughn and I continued to cast our crankbaits over the weedy flats trying to fool the finnicky bream, with Vaughn pulling 5 fish to my one (if you can call my stinky tailor a fish), yet nothing of size. I decided to switch to a Ghost Gill Jackall Chubby to see if colour makes all the difference in this clear water. Yep! You beauty, I was onto a bream, still nothing of size, it was good to catch our targeted fish. Half an hour passes and i've landed around 7 fish to Vaughn's 5-6, the colour definitely made all the difference. We continued to fish flats around Green Point and even right up to Coomba Park for around 2 hours, still managing to pull fish from the flats, all rats but our targeted fish never the less. As the tide started to run out we decided to chase some angry bream in the racks. After half an hour or so with no fish added to our tally, things weren't looking overly promising. As Vaughn motored past a fishy looking washboard, I told Vaughn to have the first cast, "Nah, i'll fish along the washboard, you can have a cast" Vaughn said. Alright, I thought as I flung my lightly weighted 3" gulp minnow  into fishy looking territory. On the drop, I felt some heavy weight on the end of my line. A quick flick of the rod tip and I was into a decent fish, which felt huge as I had a locked drag. As the fish came to the surface Vaughn netted my new PB soft plastic caught bream, going a mere 31.5cm to the fork. We continued to fish racks for another hour or so with very little luck, so we decided to have a crack at the breakwall and bridge pylons that everyone has been raving about. I rigged up an Ecogear VX40 retrofitted with Ecogear ZX spare hooks and Vaughn used a plastic approach, trying many different plastics. We didn't catch much, apart from a few stinking tailor again, so we hit the breakwall to see how the tide was going. The tide was rushing crazily, we had a few casts but quickly decided to call it a day. It was a great day for me, all up we caught around 25 bream which is one of the best sessions i've ever had since I started this luring gig.

Todd

(More information on the 2nd prefish and Tournament day coming soon)

Modifying Squidgy Wrigglers

We all know that sometimes Squidgy Wrigglers can be a bit of a pain in the backside to rig when you're used to rigging gulp soft plastics. So here is a little trick you can do to your Squidgy Wrigglers to make them a bit easier to rig and get the best presentation out of them.

*Trim about 1mm-4mm (depending on the size of wriggler) off of the nose of the plastic
*Trim the "fin" on top of the lure right off, don't be worried about if it will still catch a fish, of course it will!
*To get the lure to look as realistic as possible, I have rigged it on a 4" Berkley Pogy Head, have a look!
*Add some S-Factor
*Hold on!

Introducing your mates to lures

So here I am sitting on the lounge early Sunday morning thinking, what to do today? Well, a quick flick to the lifestyle channel to see iFish on, well, you know what happens next. A phone call to my mate Tim to see if he wanted to chase his first fish on lure, of course he says and off we headed to chase some flatties which seem to be slowing down as we get into the colder months. When we arrived, I rigged a 4" Jigging Grub in a colour Tim named "Techno" which I thought would have the most chance of catching a fish after all this rain making the water so dirty, rigged my Dad a 4" minnow in the famous "Banana Prawn" and myself a 5" Jerkshad in Blue Pepper Neon. Half an hour later to no avail Tim wasn't having much confidence in me and was beginning to wonder if we were going to catch a fish. "I'm on!" Tim yells "Oh, no i'm not, Oh, yes I am!" As he brought it up to the boat rapidly I had the net ready and the fish was in the boat, he was stoked! A quick measure and a photo and we released his first fish on lure, with a cheeky grin he looks to me and says "Haven't you caught a fish yet?". A few hours later with no more fish,  we decided to head home. Tim stayed for dinner that night and asked if we could go chase his first bream on lure the next day, well I can't say no to that! We headed out the next morning at 7:30 before he started work at 9am and pulled up at one of our bream spots which usually gets a few fish here and there, 2nd or 3rd cast and I was onto a tiddler of a bream going 18cm to the fork of the tail caught on a Cranka Crank in the "Pink Bitts" colour, one of my go to lures. We decided to slowly motor up to a promising looking sandbank and fish the weed edges. Tim casted out his 2" Shrimp in the "Banana Prawn" colour and tried his luck, 5 minutes later he is on to a bream going 23cm to the fork. He was stoked, even though it was only a 23 forker! We had to head back as soon as he released the fish as it was 8:30. No doubt in a few months he will do the same as I did, spend all his spare money on tackle. However, introducing your mates to lures is great, atleast next time you'll have a fishing parter! and who knows, they might even outdo you!

Introduction to soft plastics

Well, it was about 2 years ago when my mate said to me "Come on lets go down the lake, i have a spot where i'll guarantee you'll catch a flathead" I wearily nodded my head and off we rode down to the lake. When we arrived he looked at me and said "Do you know how to use soft plastics" .... No, i said, slightly embarrased. He gave me a modern looking object with the sinker already attached to the hook and told me to tie it on and he'd rig the soft plastic. When all was good, we both had our first casts as I watched  my K-Mart bought 6lb nylon monofilament drift away with the wind. As I was doing all sorts of stupid things with my soft plastic, I was rudely interrupted with a fish, a flathead at that. Fistpumps and high fives all round, I was stoked and the flathead was only a 33cm. We continued to fish the lake for 6 hours and we ended up pulling around 26 fish from memory. But 2 years gone and i'm not sure whether I should thank my mate or never talk to him again, I've tallied it up and what i've got is $435 worth of bream hardbodies, $90 worth of jigheads, $380 Daiwa Spellbinder/Stradic Ci4 Combo, $480 Daiwa Gekkabijin Infeet/Daiwa Gekkabijin MX 2004 combo, $420 T-Curve Tournament Series/Shimano Stradic FI combo, $170 Pflueger Trion Tournament/Shimano Sienna Combo and probably $150 worth of other fishing accessories. I guess it's just the price we pay to do what we love! Although, all the stats are based on what i have currently and i lost lots of lures when i was learning due to crappy knots. However, i wouldn't regret one bit of it. The pictures provided are two of my first lure-caught fish.