Hobie Kayak Bream Series - St Georges Basin - 15th May 2016

The TT Lures Round 7 of the Hobie Bream Series was held on St Georges Basin on the weekend and this time it was launching from Basin View. I'd never fished this end of the Basin before but some valuable time spent studying the area on Google Earth helped me immensely with what I planned to do. I only hoped the other 56 anglers didn't have the same ideas as me!

My plan was to stick to the Swan Bay side of the Basin and first point of call was a plateau in the middle, which seemed to be the same plan as about a dozen other competitors. I picked my spot and first cast with a Bait Breath 2.4” SL Remix Bloodworm Chiby (rigged on a 1/8th TT Jig Head and 3lb Gosen Bass Reloaded FC) and it gets whacked and the drag sings. Happy days, that is until a nice snapper comes up. But it’s only about 10 minutes later when I get my first bream and it’s an 800g beauty!

A few minutes later I dropped one and then it went quiet so I moved out to the edge in about 6m and picked up bream no. 2 on an Ever Green Little Max blade. I kept heading south, working the deeper edges, hoping for the clouds to move in and also the wind. When they both finally did, I raced over to a weed bed flat I’d spotted on Google Earth.

Out goes the Chiby again (this time with a 1/40th HWS) and it gets smashed on the drop. This thing screamed off and buried me in the cockle weed. I manoeuvred the yak right above her and I tried for a few minutes but I just couldn’t get her out. I'd give her some slack line and she'd run off again. Eventually she does another run and this time she pinged me. Arrrggghhhhh!

By now I'd drifted a bit closer to the shore and I was in about 1.3-1.5m depth and I changed to a Bait Breath 3” SL Remix (colour 787) which is my favourite big fish soft plastic. I picked up two fish and the best goes 890 grams, so now I have close to 2.9kgs for my bag. But then the wind stops and so does the bite.


I drop back out to the deeper water and pick up another on the Little Max. Onto the scales it goes but it’s no upgrade. But hallelujah, the wind picks up again so I race back to the same spot as before and get another two fish. One weighs in at 760 grams (caught on a 3” SL Remix colour 784) which is a nice 170g upgrade that should see me just nudge over the 3kg mark.

Back on shore the bag went 3.06 kgs and I’m chuffed to say it was just enough to snare me my 2nd win of the year. Congrats to Mark Crompton on a very close second place and to Jim Barrie for taking out third and to Scott Carmody for that crackin' Boss Hog.

Thanks again to the major sponsors TT Lures and Hobie and Steve Fields and his crew for another superb event. And also to Chris Purnell and Tameika Purnell for the fantastic lunch. Bellisimo!

And to Stephen P Blackmore and Dane Tomaszewski from Gladiator Tackle, thanks for the continued support and the excellent products that are working so well. The photo above shows my winning lures for the day (including the chewed colour 787). I've gotta say that those Bait Breath SL Remixs are gold! Happy yakkin', everyone!

cheers,
Cid

ps I almost forgot to add that it is always a pleasure to take the 20 bucks of Matty at the end of the day. : P I'm sure it won't be long though until the roles are reversed and I'm handing over the cash to him. Well, I hope not.

St Georges Basin Lure Selection - 12th May 2016

For those that might be interested, here is the selection of lures I plan to use this Sunday at the Hobie St Georges Basin round. They are all distributed by Gladiator Tackle and I'm confident they'll land me a few bream. Hopefully at least three (or four if it's a four bag comp)!

 

The top three are Ever Green Tiny Predators (the black one is a home pimp effort). And the green one is the lure that landed me the Boss Hog at Mallacoota earlier this year. The next two lures are IMA Tetra Monos. Then there are my trusty Gladiator Shiver Vibes (with another home pimping) followed by the Ever Green Little Max blades.

The top two soft plastics are the Bait Breath 3" SL Remix and then the 2.4" Chiby. The bottom one is an Ever Green C-4 Shrimp.

Now, how will I use them and where and when? That info can wait until monday I think... : P

Good luck to all competing and see you on Sunday morning. Thanks to Stephen Blackmore and Dane Tomaszewski from Gladiator Tackle for helping out with all the gear. Happy yakkin', everyone!

cheers,
Cid

Ps And yes I will be throwing the Bingos. I just didn't think I needed to tell anyone that!

Hobie Kayak Bream Series - Port Macquarie - 26th June 2016

Sunday 26th June 2016 saw me competing in Round 9 of the Hobie Kayak Bream Series sponsored by Berkley at Port Macquarie. Luke Kay and I drove up on Saturday night (thanks for driving Luke) and we were keen to hit the water the next morning.

I'd only fished here once before so it's still pretty unknown to me but I had a plan and I hoped it would work. 56 keen anglers set off at 7am and I scoot over to my first spot towards the breakwall and I start off with an Ever Green Little Max blade. I had a few tentative bumps before finally landing my first one after about 20 minutes. Not big at 27 tip but that's the donut monkey off my back (see ya sucka!).

I persevered for another 10 minutes then changed to a Bait Breath 2.4" SL Remix Chiby in Bloodworm on a 1/8th jig head. This brought me bream no. 2 and it was time to head up to Big Bay.

I bumped into Dave Hedge up there and we were both praying for a bit of a breeze to blow up. I could see a few kayakers already fishing the floating racks so I decided to stick to the barges with the old oyster trays on them. This turned out to be a good idea and over the next few hours I landed about a dozen legal fish, slowly upgrading by 20 or 30 grams every now and then. I was still using the Chiby but this time it was rigged on a 1/16th jig head and 4lb Gosen Bass Reloaded FC.

It was lots of fun but where were the big ones? Simon Morley drifted past and he had a similar story to me. Lots of fish but no kickers. It was too still in Big Bay now (no wind or tidal flow) and I needed to find some current. It was almost time to head back so I raced up to the entrance of Lime Burners. The current was still flowing here so I had time for a few quick casts.

We've all had that experience when you go to hop your lure and you feel a solid clunk and you know it's a good fish. I set the hooks and this thing raced back under the barge. I pushed my rod down into the water almost up to the reel to stop the line from rubbing on the bottom of the barge. I felt the line brush on something but it held and I turned the fish back out. A few quick winds of the handle and the fish lunges back again to repeat what happened the first time and again I stop it. Just as I was thinking 'yes, I've gotcha,' it does another run and this time the leader pings. Noooooooooo!

Ah well, everyone loses a biggie or two during tournaments but that would've been a nice upgrade. Next time fishy, next time...

Eventual winner for today was Steve Crawley, with 2nd and 3rd going to Jason Reid and Andrew Death. Congrats boys on some great bags.

My personal contest was to beat Luke but he got me with his four fish weighing 2.29kgs, easily beating my bag of 2.05kgs. My goal was to crack the top 20 and I succeeded (just) by getting 20th. But at least I smashed Simon and Dave! : P

Thanks Stephen Blackmore and Dane Tomaszewski from Gladiator Tackle for their continued support and thanks to Steve Fields, Jim Barrie and Hobie Australasia for running another superb event. The final thanks and a big shout out goes to James Kilpatrick for the fantastic BBQ and snack packs. Legend! Happy yakkin', everyone!

cheers,
Cid

Lane Cove River - 10-7-16

Luke Kay has been bugging me for ages to head over to the Lane Cove River for a session. 'Come on, it'll be fun', he said. 'You'll catch a kegger,' he said. And so with this tempting offer, we set off from Woodford Bay just after 6am. Not only were bream expected, I was also hoping for a jewfish or two as Luke has hooked a few around this area lately.

We slowly cruised down to the mouth of the river and headed around towards Manns Point. We found a nice little drop off with some nice arches showing on our sounders so we started flicking our lures out. I started with a Little Max blade and had a few bumps but no hook ups. Time for a change so on goes the Bait Breath 2.4" SL Remix Chiby rigged on a 1/8th jig head, 4lb Gosen Bass Reloaded FC and Gosen 9lb Mebarin PE. First cast and whack, I'm on.

There were a few good head shakes and I called it for a jewfish at first but when she came up I realised Luke had been good on his promise. A nice fat bluenose 1.09 kgs bream! Fantastic. And there in the background of the photo you'll see the ever elusive 'Lukellus Kayius'. : )

We picked up an assortment of fish: bream, tailor, flathead and flounder. The tide was just starting to turn and a bit more run might have brought the fish on the chew a bit more. Then to top the morning off just before we headed back, I come up tight on another good fish and this time it's a crackin' trevally. What a way to finish the session. Thanks for the invite Luke. And as Arnie said, 'Ill be back!' Happy yakkin', everyone!

cheers,
Cid

Back online! and Hobie Kayak Bream Series Round 11 - Lake Macquarie - 23rd-24th july 2016

Yes, I'm back! And there is sooooooo much to report. Where do I start? It's probably best if I start with the latest report, then jump back in time after that. So here goes...

Lake Macquarie... after last years Australian Championships that were held there, I was keen to redeem myself and do well. At least catch my bag anyway. On Friday afternoon I set off with Eric Wood for a pre-fish. We hit the flats and weed beds and managed a few fish each. Nothing amazing but it was enough for me to start formulating my plan. The Bait Breath SL Remix and Chiby were the stand out lures for me so they would be my starting lures for Saturday.

It was supposed to be a two day comp but the Wind Gods said 'I don't think so' and Jim Barrie and Tony from Hobie made the correct call to cancel the first day. And thank God they did as it was windy enough to blow a dog off its chain.

But that wasn't going to stop us from fishing. We hatched a plan and 18 of us set off for Dora Creek to keep out of the wind. 10 bucks each into the kitty and the total length of your best 3 bream would take the cash. Well the fishing sucked big time! I dropped one fish and was there when Eric landed a 25cm bream which I told him to keep as it might be the winner. As I headed back I worked a small drop-off only 20m from the ramp and blow me down, I hook up and it's a 33cm bream.

Well whattayaknow, that bream was the biggest and I'm leading. But wait, there is still 5 minutes to go and Kevo and Simon Morley are just coming back in. Kevo has nothing (that's good) but Noooooooo! Simon has 2 bream (that's bad): a 36 and a 32 so he ends up scooping the pool and taking the cash. Great fun though and at least we weren't sitting back at the resort doing SFA.

Saturday night we had time to talk tactics for the next day, so my roomies for the weekend, Geoff Alford and Eric Wood dissected the lake and the weather and came up with our cunning plans. Mine was going to depend on what the wind did. Enough of it and I'd hit the flats and weed beds. Not enough, I'd hit some plateaus and rocky points I'd marked. Whatever I decided, I planned to stick with it as in the Australian Championships here last year (where I donuted) I felt that I raced around a bit too much.

53 kayakers set off from the Power Pole start line into the very chilly conditions. The wind wasn't quite enough for what I wanted but I decided to gamble and head to the weed beds anyway, hoping the wind would pick up. Thankfully, it did. I started with the Bait Breath SL Remix and also the Bait Breath Chiby that worked so well two days ago. These were rigged on a 1/30th Nitro jighead connected to 3lb Gosen Bass Reloaded FC (straight through) on my Psyborg rod and reel outfit.

20 minutes without a bite and it was time for a change so I went for the ever reliable Smashbait 3" Minnow (colour 12 - the green one). Two casts later I get my first bream then it's about 35 minutes before I get number two which is a nice 630g fish. Jim Barrie was going past and took a few quick photos. Thanks Jim.

I continued to move towards Swansea but once there I figured there were too many anglers about and the water just didn't feel 'fishy' enough, so I turned tail and headed back to my original destination. This was a good choice as number three soon goes into the well and at 11:14am, number 4 and my full bag is completed. All on the Smashbaits, too.

I land another couple of legals (26cm to the tip of the tail) over the next few hours but they aren't upgrades so I return to the weigh in, hoping I'll scrape into the top 10. The tough conditions worked in my favour though as a lot of the other anglers (and some of the gun locals) had struggled and my bag of 2.18 kgs was enough to clinch me 4th place.

Congratulations to the podium getters, Nathan Cliff, Tony Pettie and Michael Halliday and also to Luke 'Sick as a Dog' Kay who ground it out and took home the Boss Hog with that 1.03kg beastie.
I'd like to thank Jim Barrie and Tony who worked like trojans to run the event for us this weekend. Hats off to you guys. And also a huge thanks to Chris Purnell from Totally Immersed Watersports and James Kilpatrick from Hunter Water Sports for helping me out with my sounder woes (you guys are legends).

As always, thanks to Stephen Blackmore and Dane Tomaszewski from Gladiator Tackle whose amazing products are keeping me up at the pointy end in the tournaments this year. Next month I journey to Forster and the final qualifying round for the World Championships. There is going to be probably 80 or more anglers for this one, so it's gonna be HUGE! I cant wait. For further details, visit this page at Hobie Fishing. Happy yakkin' everyone!

cheers,
Cid

Woolooware Bay - 5th September 2015

Finally! The sun rises a bit earlier, the water isn't as cold and the gin-clear waters have coloured up after the rain a couple of weeks ago. It was time to hit the racks and test out some new lures. Stephen Blackmore from Gladiator Tackle had sent me some of the new Ima Tetra lures in the new Aussie colours. These are really high quality lures and the finish is superb. They cast and swim well and come loaded with Owner hooks. 

I'd used the old colours before and have always done well with them but I think this time they've really hit the nail on the head with the designs and I'm sure a few big bream are going to try to take them home as souvenirs this summer. The top row are the Tetra's while the bottom row are the Tetra Mono's. The Mono's have a slightly deeper and wider profile and dive a bit further too. Perfect for when it's a bit blowy and you want to punch them into the wind.

The Tetras get down to about half a meter while the Monos will dive to a meter. This makes them ideal for the racks or the flats and over weedbeds. But today it was all about the racks. I was using the Gladiator Tackle Psyborg rod and reels with Gosen Mebarin 8lb PE. This is then attached to a 3 meter length of 12 lb fluorocarbon leader. Conditions were great even though the tide was almost at it's lowest. Not much run in the water but I was still hoping for some action.

I tried a few channel markers on the way out but there was no interest from any of them, so I continued into the racks. Two weeks ago when I came out I didn't even get a touch or see a fish. But today felt different and it didn't take me long to get on the board. Not a big bream at 27cm's tip but he'd be in the live well if this was a comp day. This guy pounced on a Tetra, colour no. 03.

Time to try another colour, so I tied an a Tetra Mono, colour no. 02. Matt Black is always one of my favourite lure colours in the racks and it was soon snaffled by a slightly bigger bream, this one going 31cm's tip. 

I was slow rolling the lures with pauses every couple of meters and it was during one of these pauses that the lure was belted! The rod loaded up and I felt a few angry head shakes transmit up the line. The drag was locked down and neither of us was giving an inch. I started to crank the reel handle and then he was gone. Aaargh. I still had my lure though and the hooks were still intact, so I guess I must have just lip-hooked him. That's rack fishing for you: you have to go hard or they'll dust you up good and proper. At least I kept my lure!  : P

Time for another colour change (a Tetra no. 05) and this one works too. This bream went 33cm's tip and really played up, darting from one rack over to the next and then trying to race back to where it came from. It wasn't quick enough though and after a quick photo, it went back to his little home.

So all up, I had a brilliant morning and I didn't have to share the racks with anyone else the whole time I was there. With the Hobie Georges River round in a few weeks time, it looks like the fishing will be pretty bloody awesome. This will be the last chance to qualify for the Australian Championships at Lake Macquarie in October, so get in quick and have a crack. And if you're after any of these Ima Tetra's, contact Adam at fishin.com.au. In fact, he'll have just about anything you could want, so just contact him! Happy yakkin', everyone!

cheers,

Cid

Lowrance and Insight Genesis - create your own maps!

Fishing is always pretty quite in July and August for me with soccer finals for the kids and myself but I still try to sneak out for an hour or two when I get a chance. I've been managing to brave the cold a few mornings and I decided to utilise one of the excellent features of my Lowrance Elite 5 CHIRP sounder: Insight Genesis. The sounder allows me to record my sonar log to a micro SD card which I can later upload to Lowrance and create a personal map for use on my sounder on future trips. Once you know what to do it's pretty straight forward and if you follow the steps below, you'll have it mastered in no-time.

Plus there is also a competition being run by Lowrance for the next few months called the Insight Genesis Challenge and whoever uploads the most acreage of sonar logs each month wins a Lowrance HDS7 Gen2 Touch. That's an awesome prize in anyone's books, so jump on-board and have a go. Regarding the competition, here is a video of Lee Rayner explaining how to get involved and this link from the Insight Genesis website also has a video that quickly explains it. For the complete FAQ, go here.

So for those that don't want to watch the videos or read all the other stuff, here's my cheat sheet for how to record your sonar:

1. Get a micro SD card. I have an 8GB card and based on my first lot of recordings, that will hold over 80 hours of sonar logs (approx. file size for me was 90Mb per hour).
2. Insert the SD card in your sounder and select the sonar only screen from your 'Pages'. On the Elite 5, if you don't have the sonar page on your screen, you wont get the 'Log Sonar' option when you open up the menu. I know this as on my first attempt on the water I was going backwards and forwards through menus trying to find it without success until I selected the sonar only screen!
3. Hit the menu button, and select 'Log Sonar' then 'Start Logging'. A red dot will flash in the upper right corner of your sounder to show it is recording. Start fishing!
4. Every hour I stop logging and start a new log. That way, file sizes are kept smaller for uploading and if a file is corrupted, you only lose one hour and not the whole session.

And that's it! Simple, huh? The next part is to upload your files to the Lowrance cloud, it then does all the processing and eventually you'll have a map that you can download to your SD card and use on future trips. Another great thing about this tool is that you can merge trips and build up an accurate detailed map over time. The sonar recording is great to review later and below you can see a heap of fish right on the edges of the drop off below.

I started using this in Yowie Bay and below shows the maps and merged trips over a two week period. To get a really accurate map, you go back and forth over the area.

This will allow all the lumps and bumps to be recorded.

The next week I ventured down the other side of the bay and merged my two trips into one map.

If you like, you can also turn off the trail to show the contour map only.

 Here is a zoomed in section showing the detail that can be obtained. Brilliant stuff I reckon.

My next trip was into the upper section and then back down across some previously un-mapped water which I once again merged with my previous map. And each time I go out and merge trips, I'll end up with a more accurate map than the last time.

Oh, and although the fishing wasn't exactly brilliant, I did land a first from my kayak, and it was literally, a beauty.

So once you've finished mapping a section and completed your maps, you can download them and use them on your sounder. In fact, there are literally thousands of maps from around the world that you can download and use on your sounder. It's an awesome feature that can save so much time and effort if you are fishing in a new area. I know that every time I go out in the kayak now, I'll be logging my sonar for future reference. It's a no brainer. Happy yakkin', everyone!

cheers,

Cid

ps I filmed a quick 'How to...' for your sonar logging.