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Saturday - The Pre Fish:
Craig450, Paffoh and I had a gentleman’s hour pre fish in the Clyde on Saturday, hoping to find the fish for Sunday. Craig had a cracker of a day and landed numerous legal bream, and the biggest EP we’d ever seen with his finesse plastic shenanigans. I caught a greedy flounder on soft plastics, then switched to a small suspending HB and got a legal bream of about 28cm, who became the ‘Taj Mahalivewell’s’ first guest and enjoyed a 3 hour stay, before swimming off strongly at the end of the session.
The good day got better after we packed up, as we enjoyed some of life’s greatest pleasures, gorging at Maccas after fishing all day without eating, buying stuff you want at the tackle shop, BBQ and beers with good mates while watching kayak fishing DVD’s and browsing the new Daiwa tournament catalogue.
Sunday – The Tournament:
About 10 kayak fishers contested Round 5 of the Southern Bream Series this morning on the Clyde River at Nelligen. Idyllic early conditions had us dreaming of full wells and upgrades, but the fish were pretty shut down (For everyone except Stu) and legal fish were hard to come by. I managed an undersized bream and a pretty perch in the first hour using small suspending hard bodies.
A few minutes after the perch I got my first legal bream of 25cm EXACTLY who was introduced to the ‘Taj Mahalivewell’. There was a boat section of the comp as well, and hence a lot of people fishing the same areas and as the day wore on it got harder to find virgin water. A gusty breeze sprung up at about 11am, and fishing light was difficult after this. I was lucky to pick up a second legal fish totally out of the blue at about 11.30, after casting the same lure flat out for the previous 90 minutes without a touch. He went 29 cm and contributed to a 2 fish 685 gram bag.
Luckily it was good enough for second, congrats Stu on a great bag and a well deserved win. Stu easily caught the most bream and even got a couple on the surface lures, which is a great achievement this time of year. There was a bit of excitement just before the weigh in, as one of the more extravagant and speedy boaters was pulled up by the water police right outside where everyone was assembled for an unknown offence and nearly missed the weigh in!
It was great to see a solid yak presence on the water (I think there about 10 entrants?), I had a ball, this was my first experience of the bream tournament scene and I now wish I'd started earlier, looking forward to the next instalment!
(Posted on behalf of a too modest Jason ‘Squidder’ Price)
