By Paul Malov
The weekend of the 13 & 14th of October saw 70 teams and 46 kayakers descend on Mallacoota, for the final qualifying round of the Victorian Bream Classics.
We had a strong pre-fish 5 weeks prior to the event and decided to rest a number of our prime spots, where we had found fish previously, for Saturday and Sunday, to reduce pressure. Trying some different edges on the Friday, we caught bream up to 48cm (which would have been great on one of the comp days) on Atomic Hardz – Bream Shad 50s in Matt Ayu and Bassday Kangoku Shads in the c83 colour.
Day 1 started off well with a bag coming together by 9am off snags, rockwalls and muddy/sandy wind blown edges. Three solid upgrades for the day gave us a total bag weigh of 5.69kg for 5 bream, including a big yellowfin that held the “Big Bream” title (briefly) at 1.33kg! We had a 700g lead heading in to day 2!
Day 2 was a very tough affair, 3 small fish by 11.30am and a bust off by a big blue nose bruiser had us scratching our heads wondering what to do. A decision was made to try our luck on some wind blown muddy/sandy banks and this proved to be a tournament saving decision. Upon arrival at the new location, several fish were spotted with their noses down, tails up and actively feeding on the flat. The fish were very receptive to a fast twitched 2″ Atomic fat grub in Avocado and Old Penny and 2 solid fish in 10 minutes just turned our day from very average to promising! Over the next hour we continued to fish similar banks for 2 more solid upgrades including a 38cm fork black bream that weighed in at 1.2kg, gave us a day 2 total of 4.77kg, giving us the win by 1.4kg over our nearest rivals!
The win had given us the maximum 100 points for the round and the overall Vic Bream Classic 2012 team of the year honours for the second time in 3 years!
