Spirit of Tasmanian Bream Classic — Round 2

Cool, calm and cloudy conditions greeted the 26 teams for the first day of round two in the Spirit of Tasmania Bream Classic.

The Howler Custom Rods pre-fish briefing went off very well, with interstate raider Terry ‘Turtle’ Howe picking up the fantastic Howler Custom rod.

Day One

All eyes were on top-ranked Team Tasfish.com/Bigfin after some very bold predictions in the weeks leading up to the event.

Most teams headed through the newly-marked cut and made their way down to the numerous flats and bars in the main estuary. Several teams also headed upstream to try their luck, and also to let the spray settle on the cut.

The new channel markers were brilliant, which is a credit to Mike Stevens who organised the work through Marine and Safety Tasmania and Shane Ling who also put in some well-placed markers.

Plenty of bream were on the chew, with 100 fish weighed in and 17 teams coming back to scale with their five fish limit on day one.

Teams started weighing in early, especially Team www.sportsfishtasmania.com, and why not with a huge 5.69kg bag with a spanking big bream that eased the scales down to 1.47kg.

As all the teams weighed in it quickly became apparent that the system was full of 800g fish, and that winners would need one or two big kickers to keep ahead of the pack.

Weighing in nearly last, Team Cranka Pro pushed straight to the top with a 5.71kg bag to start day two with a slender 20g lead.

Team Tackle Us were in third place, thanks in part to an awesome 1.6kg Big Bream, which appeared to be a Tas Bream Classic record.

Day Two

Day two started out much the same as day one, with perfect conditions greeting teams. With the fish seemingly widespread throughout the lower estuary system, teams soon spread out. While teams such as Bream it On caught most of their big five fish back upstream of the start, most decided to head down through the tight and shallow section to see what all the fuss was about.

Team Pellows Saws and Mowers weighed in early, and reversed their day one donut with a five fish bag. However as the clock ticked nearer to 2pm the bulk of the teams headed back to scale.

A very tense weigh-in followed, with Team Sportsfishtasmania.com setting the early trend with a 4.63kg bag, almost a full kilo lighter than day one but heading to the top of the table with a 10/10.31kg limit.

In contrast Team Ecogear/Nitro pulled in with a 5.32kg bag, nearly 800g heavier than day one, but not enough to squeeze past sportsfishtasmania.com.

It looked like McKenzie and Sullivan were going to repeat their 2009 form until Team Tackle Us weighed in last and jumped 500g past them to seize their maiden Spirit of Tasmania Bream Classic victory with 10/10.82kg.

Big Bream Record?

Andrew Wells, of Team Tackle Us, Big Bream honours were short lived from day one, as Grant Stingel from Team St Helens Bait and Tackle eclipsed his thumper on day two with a mammoth 1.665kg horse claiming the Tackle Us Big Bream voucher and new record.

Top Team techniques

Third placed Team Ecogear/Nitro used a mixture of soft plastics rigged on 1/12oz and 1/8oz 1/0 jigs. The boys used the new Ecogearaqua 3” Bug Ants in A04, A05 and A06 colours to add to their mix of soft baits. They used 15 different patterns and colours and rarely threw the same baits for more than a few casts.

This constant switching of lures worked well enough to tempt bites needed during the generally slow bite. Tim used a mixture of bright coloured soft baits and a rip and pause retrieve, while Plinio stuck to more natural tones and slower twitch and draw type movements in an attempt to cover all bases.

“Day one saw a couple of good fish landed in the first two hours and then a series of missed opportunities which meant we had to move to our second spot in order to fill our bag, but no upgrades,” said Plinio.

Second placed www.sportsfishtasmania.com used mainly soft plastics to compile their 10 fish for 10.31kg. Patrick Sullivan and Leigh McKenzie used Gulp 6” Sandworms, Gulp fry and Gulp 4” Sand eels. These plastics were coupled to 1/16oz and 1/8oz jigheads and 4lb fluorocarbon and fished deeper water between 2-4m.

McKenzie and Sullivan boated around 20 fish for the two days, upgrading several times on the way to their limit bags.

Winning tactics

The key element for the winning team Tackle Us was smart pre-fishing and sticking to their plan. Lister and Wells pre-fished intelligently and found some key structure, which proved to be their ‘honey-hole’ over the two days. They interchanged between this spot and a deeper channel area, resting the structure for several hours at a time.

This strategy proved to be crucial, with the boys catching nearly 50 bream for the two days, mostly off this piece of hidden structure.

While the second and third placed teams relied on soft plastics for their bags, Tackle us persisted with hardbodied lures, which Lister felt was the key.

“We noticed after day one that the live well was empty of the usual shell and crab pieces. Combined with the large amount of baitfish around the structure lead us to believe that the bream were focussed on baitfish, rather than the usual crab and shellfish” Lister said.

Team Tackle Us used the Zipbait Rigge 60SS on the shallower sections and Ecogear SX40 and MX62 in the deeper sections. Wells teamed this with Yamatoa 3lb fluorocarbon on Daiwa Luvius reels and Daiwa Interline Tournament Z and Tournament Master Z rods.

Lister used Megabass Destroyer and Samurai Reaction rods coupled with Daiwa Luvius reels, Daiwa Tournament braid and Daiwa Tournament fluorocarbon.

The StrikePro improvement award for day one went to Team Sitting Ducks and the Strikepro Big Bream on a Strikepro lure went to Tom Viney with a 1.24kg specimen.

The Tackle Us Big Bream (overall) was a 1.665kg horse caught by Grant Stingel.

Many thanks to major sponsors Spirit of Tasmania, Berkley, Daiwa, Strikepro, Tackle Us, and to Warwick and Sally Medwin for their super generous personal sponsorship of $200 worth of fuel vouchers.

All eyes now turn to the final round of the Spirit of Tasmania Bream Classic on the Derwent River on May 15-16.

With Team Sportsfishtasmana.com and Team Ecogear/Nitro tied on points at the top of the table, the final round will be very exciting indeed.

Tagged as: bream, Spirit of Tasmania