Should you enter a Tournament?

Prefish 1
 
I woke up at 5:30am, Saturday 30th of May to the loud sirens of my phone alarm ringing in my ear. At that time, I had no intentions of getting up, but if I didn't get up, I wouldn't go fishing! So, I grabbed my rods and my tackle bag, walked into my parents room to wake Dad up (which somewhat reminded me of a herd of pigs that I once seen at the zoo!) and off I went to meet my partner Vaughn Lewis at Forster Boat Harbour. It wasn't long until we had the boat started and had our rods rigged, who am I kidding, I rigged the rods the night before I was that excited! We arrived at a flat near Green Point at around 6:30am, it was only a matter of time until we had our lures in the water, slow rolling them over shallow weedbads, targeting the sandy patches. It didn't take long (first cast!) . Vaughn and I continued to cast our hardbodies over the weedy flats trying to fool the finnicky bream, with Vaughn pulling 5 fish to my one (if you can call my tailor a fish!), yet nothing of si ze. I decided to switch to a more natural coloured hardbody, to see if the colour made all the difference in this clear water. Yep! You beauty, I was onto a bream, still nothing of size, but it was still good to catch our targeted fish never the less. Half an hour passes and i've landed around 7 fish to Vaughn's 5-6, the colour definitely does make all the difference. We continued to fish flats around Green Point and even right up to Coomba Park for around 2 hours, still managing to pull fish from the flats, all rats but our targeted fish never the less. As the tide started to run out we decided to chase some angry bream in the racks. After half an hour or so with no fish added to our tally, things weren't looking overly promising. As Vaughn motored past a fishy looking washboard, I told Vaughn to have the first cast, "Nah, i'll fish along the washboard, you can have a cast" Vaughn said. Alright, I thought as I flung my lure into fishy looking territory. As soon as I started my retrieve, I felt some heavy weight on the end of my line. A quick flick of the rod tip and I was into a decent fish, which felt huge with my locked drag, skull-dragging the fish out of the racks. As the fish came to the surface Vaughn netted my new PB bream, going a mere 31.5cm to the fork. We continued to fish racks for another hour or so with very little luck, so we decided to have a crack at the breakwall and bridge pylons that everyone has been raving about. We rigged up some heavier gear and off we went. We didn't catch much! apart from a few stinking tailor again, so we hit the breakwall to see how the tide was going. The tide was rushing crazily, we had a few casts but quickly decided to call it a day. It was a great day for me, all up we caught around 25 bream which is one of the best sessions i've ever had since I started this luring gig!

Prefish 2
 
Yet again, I woke up to the loud sirens of my phone alarm ringing in my ear. This time I got up quickly, excited for the day that was ahead of us. I met Vaughn at the ramp at 6am This time we noticed it would be an outcoming tide early morning so we hit the racks first and fished them for around 1-2 hours. We didn't hook much fish, apart from an undersize bream and yet another tailor. We then ventured to the flats around Green Point which produced some good fishing, at one point we found a nice school and got three fish in three casts. Respectable size too! A 28, 31 and a new pb of 35 fork! All caught on OarGee Lil' Rippers in the BD colour. We decided to leave the rest of the school alone and venture up to the racks to try our luck again. The decision proved productive, with a few more nice fish going into the well. We fished racks for another two hours or so with good results, with a few more fish in the well and a couple of upgrades. We decided to try our luck on the pylon s again, without much luck as the tide was rushing fairly fast again. We had our spots sussed so we decided to call it a day and have a rest for the big day ahead of us tomorrow!

Tournament Day

I arrived at the Boat Harbour at 5:45am to find the boat launched and Vaughn waiting for me already while the boat was beached on the sand. The number of glass boats increased as minutes went on, which made my nerves go through the roof being the youngest in the field. I eventually made my way up to the tent to sign on and sat in await for the briefing. The briefing had started, we got told there were 37 boats in the field and all the regular mumbo jumbo that they inform you of at briefings and to make our way over to the pontoon to receive our tags and get our boats checked out for all the safety gear. As we made our way over to the pontoon to get our boats checked out, we got handed a key tag, number 36! We headed our way over to another wharf to hold onto until our number had been called out. ....36! got called out, as we made our way into the chop that all the fast glass boats had made, we were quietly confident as we had two great prefishes and had a quiver of spots under our belt. As we arrived at the sandflat, we quickly casted out our lures in nerves and excitement. After half an hour, with not even a bite, our hopes weren't through the roof, to put it that way. With no luck, I swapped over to my heavier rod, which had a plastic rigged, and flicked out a cast, around 5 casts later I was on to a nice fish. It wasn't too long before it was in the boat, I may have gone a bit too hard on it actually as Vaughn was questioning me about leader size . The fish went 36cm to the fork, which is yet another PB! Unfortunately, this fish was pretty much it for the day, apart from another which just scraped legal. Our bag was only a total of 1kg, leaving the 36 at 770g, it was a fairly skinny fish for it's size. Well, we ended up coming second last! But oh well, this is what happens in tournaments! I ended up with Kids big bream and kids big bag which I was stoked (and surprised) with, seeing it wasn't an overly big bag. What a gr eat couple of days!

A tip for the people out there contemplating whether they should or should not enter a tournament, do it, you won't regret it! I went in to the tournament with a couple of rods, a couple of bags of plastics and a handfull of hardbodies. Sure, I didn't go well on the day but I had an absolute ball and learnt heaps of techniques which has already improved my bream fishing.

-Todd Riches