Spirit of Tasmania Bream Classic sees record catches

Marvellous conditions greeted the 25 starting teams in round one of the 2010 Spirit of Tasmania Bream Classic series.

After a fun filled Howler Custom Rods briefing, where Tim Colgrave won the Howler Custom rod, valued at around $300.00, teams soon filed off to their respective dens.

In cool and overcast conditions and light winds, the teams snaked their way slowly to the end of the 5knot limit before dispersing to all corners of Georges Bay.

With tides suiting the flats style angler, many teams headed for shallow water to fill their five fish limit.

During weigh in it soon became apparent that this was going to be great day, with 18 out of 25 teams recording a five fish limit, and only one team bringing donuts to the scale.

Some quite large bream were weighed in, with several contenders for the Tackle Us Big Bream amongst them.

Weights include the bream bags, so all weights are 495grams heavier than actual weight.

Day One
Tim Farrell held the Tackle Us big bream lead with a cracker at 1.93kg (including bag).

Team Roz Homes and Construction won the Strike Pro encouragement award for Day One, which includes some hand picked Strike Pro Reaction Baits and some Strike Pro hardbodied lures.

Team www.tasfish.com/Bigfin of Mike Stevens and Leroy Tirant fished the flats extremely well to hold a 650gram lead after the weigh in was completed for day one.

Most teams were tight-lipped out techniques and locations for the first day’s session, keeping their powder dry for day two of round one of the Spirit of Tasmania Bream Classic.

Day Two
Day two of the first Spirit of Tasmania Bream Classic round saw a continuation of the consistent fishing from day one.

Teams set off in a constant drizzle, with Team Tasfish.com – Bigfin leading the pack out onto Georges Bay to protect their 650gram lead from day one.

All boats made the most of the run-in tides and overcast conditions to try and capitalise on the shallow water bite in the early stages of the session.

While some teams felt that the fishing was tough, all teams managed to bring fish to scales, including some thumping contenders for the Tackle Us Big Bream. Some teas reported catching over 60 fish for the two days, which is awesome fishing in anyone’s book.

212 bream were weighed in over the two days between 25 teams, which will certainly make competitors for the ABT qualifier in March very happy indeed.

Third placed Team www.sportsfishtasmania.com of Leigh McKenzie and Patrick Sullivan weighed in a 10 fish bag of 9.97 (including bag), and caught most of their fish on hardbodies fished over the flats in quite shallow water. Event though fish were coming to the hardbodies, McKenzie experimented with soft plastics for very little result.

Second placed Team Ecogear/Nitro used the same sorts of tactics, and hunted out the bigger bream for the top bag for day two. Plinio Taurian used Ecogear hardbodies lures to take plemty of great sized bream, while team mate Tim Hodge’s bag was compiled with Zipbait Khamsin Junior hardbodied lures fished in 1m of water on the flats.

However it was Team www.tasfish.com – Bigfin that held their day one lead to take out round one of the Spirit of Tasmania Classic.

The team consisting of Mike Stevens and Leroy Tirant used a variety of hardbodied lures on the flats to quickly compile a decent bag. Mike Stevens commented that a great deal of their angling efficiency was due to new ipilot technology from Minn Kota which enabled the team to hold position with the electric using GPS technology.

“A few things we put in place were – a plan that we stuck to; Lucky Craft lures – worked a treat, plus a shallow Stiffy Prowler. A Push Pole held us in position without having the noise/vibrations of the electric going; ipilot installed on the Minn Kota.” Mike said.

“The ipilot is awesome – we had about the first one in Australia thanks to Leroy and BLA supplying it on Thursday. They are GPS based and will repeat a track you have fished on and hold you in position using the spot lock/anchor feature – regardless of current, wind and so on” said Mike Stevens at the presentation.

Together with a range of hardbodies from Lucky Craft, and a Prowler Stiffy Minnow, the team cemented their reputation as the ones to beat in this year’s in this year’s Spirit of Tasmania Bream Classic Series.

Tackle Us Big Bream
The Tackle Us Big Bream was caught by Andrew Kruska with a thumper of 2.12kg (including bag), which less the bag weight would have come in around 1.6kg. Each round sees Tackle Us at Kingston providing a $200 voucher for the winner of the Tackle Us Big Bream.

Teams now prepare for the second round on the Swan River in mid April.

Many thanks to all sponsors: Spirit of Tasmania, Squidgies, Daiwa, Ecogear, Pure Fishing, Tackle Us, Howler Custom Rods, Tasman Door Centre and Warwick and Sally Medwin for their super-generous donation of 2x $100 fuel vouchers for each round.

Tagged as: bream