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Round 4 of the Squidgy southern bream series was held on Sunday 18/4 at St.Georges basin, NSW south coast. A field of 15 kayaks and 72 boats filled most of Palm beach on the Basin's foreshore ready for the 7 am start in ideal conditions.
Once the boaters had cleared out, we set off in the yaks hoping to fill our livewells early. I chose to start off fishing deep water with blades while most opted to fish the shallow weedbeds and sand flats that surround the basin. On my 2nd cast i hooked up to what i thought was a decent bream, but unfortunately it was a just legal Snapper. For the next 30 minutes i had no felt even a touch until i finally connected to a bream which measured 27cm to the fork.
Its a great feeling during a comp to get the first fish into the livewell, i was happy to have done that but i needed 2 more to have a chance. I kept working the blades for at least another hour with no success so i moved in closer to fish a weedbed in approximately 2m of water with soft plastics and immediately hooked up to a solid fish which took a lot of line on the first run, at this point i was excited, thinking i had a solid bream on, i got the first glimpse of the fish and the colour was right, but as it neared the surface i was heart broken to see a trevally of about 45cm.
Usually i would have been glad to have that on my line but it was not the target species so it went back in the water as quick as possible so i could get back to the fishing. I drifted close enough to Squidder to ask how he was going, and i was suprised to hear he already had a full livewell and had upgraded 1 fish. I needed a change of plan so i pedalled to another spot i have had good results and continued with the blades, still without any luck, and time was running out quickly and before i knew it, it was time to head back to weigh in with my single average sized bream.
Once i had spoken to a few people back on the beach i soon realised not many had struggled like i did, and some good bags were weighed in by most. i was a bit dissapointed with my performance, but happy to have at least the 1 fish to weigh in to claim the extra points. To make up for my dissapointment i got to witness KFA's Derek 'Paffoh' Steele claim his first tournament victory with a good bag of 3 fish weighing 1.87kg and Jason 'Squidder' Price taking 3rd with a bag of 3 for 1.685kg.
Here is what Paf had to say about the event and his first ever tournament win:
"With the last remaining Hobie ABT round in Camden Haven being just a little too far away for a fly in weekend visit I took the opportunity to participate in my second SSBS event of the year. Most of the KFA ‘Canberra Massive’ members attended, along with members of AKFF and KFDU (And other associations). "
"Having fished the Basin a few times previously, and lacking time to recently pre fish, I found myself followed my worn ground.Using my kayaks ability to negotiate shallow weedy flats I struggled with surface lures, finding Bream active but short striking. My plan B was always to vibe deeper water using metal blades, using one of my go to Impact Bladez. "
"It’s a strange technique that involves firstly finding fish, initiating a follow along the bottom and producing hits on the lift. I pulled plenty of hooks early on large Bream, finding only a tell tale scale on the rear treble (Possible foul hooking).
"Wandering around the 10m mark searching for schools is frustrating stuff, especially with so much water to cover. My first Bream came after my first position shuffle, a 37/38cm fork length genuine belter that took both the rear treble and foul hooked its facial cheek on the front. It was quite heavy and was easily over a kilo; obviously I began trying to replicate the feat by staying confident and peppering the area looking for its brothers and sisters."
"Unfortunately I dropped similar (If not bigger) specimens over the next hour, only to then hit a school of the scourge of the Basin bream fishers, the royal Tarwhine. Once hooked they go like stink, out of a similar size Breams league anyway."
"With no interest in royal gossip I became frustrated, waiting for lengthy cloud cover before venturing back to the shallows. My second fish sipped a long cast Jazz Zappa off from a weedy patch point, making for a harrowing battle in 20cm of water. I have developed total confidence in these lures, eclipsing my other favourite surface lure, the PX45. "
"A 28cm Bream, skinny but lengthy met a mate in the live well and the quest for Bream number three took me back to the depths.Again I lost fish and struggled to land anything decent over the remaining hours; with minimal time remaining I spied my two last rifts and tied on a large Ecogear ZX. The third and last Bream for the day hit the blade on the drop second cast, luckily for me the ZX assist hooks pinned the lip mark perfectly. It looked small but was 26cm fork length, completing my six and a half hour tournament bag."
"I made it back to the weigh in with about 20 seconds to spare, giving myself uppercuts for cutting it so fine (Not to mention thrashing my legs in a frantic last minute thrashing). My guess of weight was around a 1.6kg bag, given the two sub 30 legals (And size to weight ration from previous competitions). To my surprise it went 1.87kg on the lie detector, courtesy of the kicker Bream (Who was much bigger than the photo suggests)."
"I was humbled by my first tournament win and acknowledged the very close effort of one and all. It’s taken many years and an enormous effort juggling small business with distance travelled but all good things come to those that wait... And in this case, more importantly, participate! "
Final results for round 4:
Position TEAM NAME KAYAKER WEIGHT BIG BREAM POINTS
1 Hobie Fishing Derek Steele 1.87 50
2 Stewart Dunn 1.720 49
3 Team AKFF Jason Price 1.685 48
4 Itchyant Ant Gorzacka 1.525 47
5 John T Barling 1.17 46
6 Jason Reid 1.110 45
7 Parko Alan Parkinson 0.775 44
8 Jason Peters 0.725 43
9 Edmedia.com.au Marcel Chaloupka 0.6 42
10 Andrew Death 0.485 41
11 AKFF 2 Craig Coughlan 0.475 40
Westie Clint Short 10
Jason Childs 10
NSW South Coast kayak fishos Paul Blenkin 10
Scott Barling 10
Year to date rankings:
R1 R2 R3 R4 TOTAL
1 Stewart Dunn (GF Qualify 3rd rnd) 49 47 49 49 194
2 Alan Parkinson 37 10 48 44 139
3 Craig Coughlan (KFA) 45 48 40 133
4 Andrew Death 38 44 41 123
5 Jason Reid 10 10 47 45 112
6 Carl Dubois (GF Qualify 1st rnd) 50 50 100
7 Daniel Holder (GF Qualify 2nd rnd) 48 50 98
8 Jason Price (KFA) 49 48 97
9 Brian Rutledge 42 10 42 94
10 Jason Peters 10 41 43 94
11 Dave Gleeson 43 46 89
12 Thomas Wood 44 44 88
13 Marcel Chaloupka 10 10 10 42 72
14 Wayne Robinson 47 10 10 67
15 Derek Steele (KFA) (GF Qualify 4th rnd) 10 50 60
16 John T Barling 10 46 56
17 Joe Pietrasikiewicz 10 45 55
18 Dave Hedge 40 10 50
19 Ant Gorzacka 47 47
20 Jason Meech 46 46
21 Brad Reid 41 41
22 Rowan Stanek 39 39
23 Steve Mastronimini 10 10 20
24 Scott Barling 10 10 20
25 Clint Short 10 10 20
26 Rod Waller 10 10
27 Ken Raley 10 10
28 Denis Huon 10 10
29 Mitchell Flavel 10 10
Bruce Flavel 10 10
Stephen Moy 10 10
Shawn Davies 10 10
Patrick Curran (KFA) 10 10
Tim Barden 10 10
Jason Childs 10 10
Paul Blenkin 10 10
