20 teams all chasing 1 species. The boats that set off from Bayview in Hen & Chicken Bay at 7am for 7 hours of exciting fishing ranged 
from humble tinnies to $50,000 fibreglass imports. Up for grabs was a $1,000 entry fee into the Forster Megabucks Tournament plus $3,000 dollars worth of tackle for each angler. Some well known names were amongst the teams and Gary and I were out to upset them. The first thing I had to do was catch a bream! The Lake Macquarie round was a thing of the past and I was sooooooo relieved (not as much as Gary though) when I landed our 1st bream for the day that just made the 25cm fork minimum length. We landed a few more just under size and ventured into Exile Bay to fish the flats. Gary tied on one of Ecogears VX40's (a metal blade lure) and hooked up within the first few casts. Next cast he's on again and I switch from the SP's to a VX40 as well.
from humble tinnies to $50,000 fibreglass imports. Up for grabs was a $1,000 entry fee into the Forster Megabucks Tournament plus $3,000 dollars worth of tackle for each angler. Some well known names were amongst the teams and Gary and I were out to upset them. The first thing I had to do was catch a bream! The Lake Macquarie round was a thing of the past and I was sooooooo relieved (not as much as Gary though) when I landed our 1st bream for the day that just made the 25cm fork minimum length. We landed a few more just under size and ventured into Exile Bay to fish the flats. Gary tied on one of Ecogears VX40's (a metal blade lure) and hooked up within the first few casts. Next cast he's on again and I switch from the SP's to a VX40 as well. And that's when the fun started. The bream were climbing all over these things and after two drifts we had our 5 bag limit. Only 8:20am and we were ready to start upgrading. Gary gets a good hit but it's a lousy, rotten flathead of 58cm's. Normally a great catch
but not today! : ) More upgrades come over the side when I get our first kicker fish, a 35cm fork beauty that weighs 900 grams. We couldn't believe how good these lures were working. To the right is a close-up of the one Gary was using. All we'd do is cast them out as far as we could, then double-hop them back to the boat. Often the fish would come back 2 or 3 times if they didn't hook-up the first time.
but not today! : ) More upgrades come over the side when I get our first kicker fish, a 35cm fork beauty that weighs 900 grams. We couldn't believe how good these lures were working. To the right is a close-up of the one Gary was using. All we'd do is cast them out as far as we could, then double-hop them back to the boat. Often the fish would come back 2 or 3 times if they didn't hook-up the first time.Once the bite shut down we moved off to a few other bays. We'd take turns swapping between SP's and HB's but the VX's were snaring all the fish. At one stage Gary and I had a double hook-up and it took us a few minutes to decide which fish in the well had to be returned to the river. I only wish we had choices like that every tournament we fished in!
With 90 minutes to go, we figured we had a bag of about 3 kg's. We still needed a couple of kicker fish as we knew you'd need a bag over 4 kg's to win. Gary suggested Gladesville Marina where there was some deeper water and a chance to hook some thumpers. As we were fishing, Gary noticed a lot of water in the boat, and I mean a lot. We quickly discovered that one of the fish in the live well had it's tail over the water outlet and the water was just running over the top. 
Gary said, "I'll sort this out, you catch a horse."
Gary said, "I'll sort this out, you catch a horse." On one of my retrieves I felt a nudge and then 'whoompf', there was some serious weight on the end of my line. "Gary," I said as this thing swam under the marina. I dipped the rod to keep the line free of the barnacle-encrusted pontoon and called out again, "Gary...net!" But Gary, who had his head down near the bilge pump, didn't hear me. Very quickly the fish swam to the surface and when he came out from under the pontoon I yelled out "GARY! GET THE NET!!!" This thing was a monster. He had huge blue lips, looked about 3 inches across the back and I guesstimated he would've been at least 45cm's. He took one look at me and with a few big tail beats he shredded me on the pontoon before I could dip the rod again. Oh, the agony! So close but not close enough.
With no time to lose, we quickly got back to the fishing. Then, it's Gary's turn and his rod bends until the tip is in the water. This time we're ready and we move away from the marina into open water. Gary backs off the drag now that we're clear and we know this is another big bream. Then woe is us again, the line goes limp and we've dropped him. Oh, double the agony. We check our watches and still have 20 minutes to fish, so cursing under our breath, we return to the edge of 
the marina.
the marina. 5 minutes later I'm on again and this feels like another bruiser. Come on, 3rd time lucky we think and yes, Gary expertly slides the net under our biggest fish that stretches to 37cm's fork and 1.1 kg's. With 5 minutes to go, Gary lands another upgrade and we think we may have a chance. We hope we have about 4kg's and as we carry the fish to the weigh in there are a few 'Ooh, big fish' from the spectators. As they go on the scales we see that the leaders have 4.2kg's and we're shattered to only go 3.724 kg's. The old adage of the one that got away really bit on us the bum today but in reality nearly every team drops a few good fish. Justcrusin32 (Dave) from AKFF had a tough tourny and also lost some real horses, which if you get them into the boat, can really make a difference.
In the final wash-up we came in at 6th place, with the winners, taking it out with 4.3kg's, being Team Shimano, so a big congratulations to Bill and Mark on a good win. I had one of the best days fishing ever and the biggest thanks go to Gary Brown who let me join his team for the series. Thanks Gary! So back to the yak for me and I may have to chase a few more bream seeing I was bitten by the Bream Bug big time last weekend. Happy yakkin', everyone!
cheers,
Cid
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