SSBS ST George's Basin

[craig450]

Year to date results:

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 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 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 (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 10 10
Tim Barden 10 10
Jason Childs 10 10
Paul Blenkin 10 10

[itchyant]

Well done to Paff, Stu and Jason for their placings. I was just stoked to weigh a bag for my first attempt! And thanks to all the guys who provided me advice on the area.

I had a great time, though I had maybe one too many beers the night before with Scott, and the monkey was pounding in my head as we launched. Top conditions for the day. I picked up my biggest fish within the first 30mins on a blade, had a bit of a dry spell (and a couple of issues with my livewell), but picked up the next two legals after 10am on a sinking lipless stick minnow. Lost a cracker when the 4lb leader popped, unfortunately it was my only lure of the type, and only managed one more undersized bream for the rest of the day.

Looking forward to the next comp at the end of May now!

[paffoh]

Thanks for the kind words guys and well done to all for attending...

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). The Boating and kayaking sections were filled with some of the sports elite tournament anglers (Including the who’s who of product big wigs). 72 boats and 17 kayaks ventured out in pristine conditions (A real god send) for seven hours of hopeful, rod bending mayhem.

St Georges Basin is an extremely healthy waterway, providing anglers with both deep and shallow options. While the majority of the fish caught were Bream (The target species), the by catch was somewhat differing (Depending on where you fished). Garfish, Long Tom, Whiting in the shallows to Trevally, Snapper, Flathead and Tarwhine occupying the deep). 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 or two left 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!