Kayaking

Tassie turns on big weather, big fish

ANSON’S Bay in Tasmania looks to have the potential to produce huge bream bags and massive fish, unfortunately for Round 10 of the Daiwa-Hobie BREAM Kayak Series, Mother Nature played a big hand in proceedings.

Day one saw the arena reduced to the lee side of the bay due to a gale force wind warning. This pretty much cut out the most productive side of the lake but the 23 competing anglers worked with what they had and brought bags to the weighmaster. Adam Crick returned with an excellent 3/3 for 3.39kg to lead at the end of the day, but with the forecast for the wind to abate and the promise of the big fish on offer it was still anyone’s game.

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Day two saw the entire bay open with no gale warning and winds set to drop throughout the day. Unfortunately, the winds came up and stayed at gale force for the entire session.

Unknown to them at the time, a few anglers made the trip to the far side and were bound for a rough pedal back. Richard Somerton returned with stories of big fish hooked but conditions extremely tough to land them. All in all they were pretty tough conditions to fish and navigate. In the end consistently good bags were weighed in, proving the amazing potential of Ansons Bay.

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The eventual winner, Greg Lewis, spent the first day fishing a rocky bank on the eastern side and had his bag by 8am and upgraded twice throughout the day. On the second day Greg was one of the anglers to take the opportunity and make his way towards the entrance of the system, an area which he believed even before the start of the comp held the quality of fish needed to win.

He fished the channel that splits the flats at the front. The water was dirtier and he knew he needed to extract the fish before they buried him in the thick weed and he also needed to adjust his tackle for better control in the windy conditions and more pulling power. After filling his bag by 9am Greg set about looking for upgrades by putting on a larger lure. In the end his day two bag of 3.265kg was enough to give him a total of 5.92kg and the extra 10g needed to win the event.

Second place was taken by Tasmanian local Grant Stigel with two bags just under the magical 3kg mark for a total two day weight of 6/6 5.91kg. It was Grant’s first time in a kayak, a Hobie Revolution 13 he borrowed from Mick Ribka of Strike Tiger.

Grant worked on a flat at the front of the river mouth and he had his bag within the first half an hour on day one and managed to upgrade three times during the session working blades in the deeper water. On day two he hit the same flat and caught one fish immediately but nothing after that. A quick move to a flat a little further out of the river mouth saw him fill his bag on the weed edge and then upgrade twice throughout the day. Grants total sat in first place until the very last angler to weigh in and it was to be the closest of margins, 10 grams in fact, that set him and Greg Lewis apart.

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The Hogs Breath Cafe Boss Hog weighed in at an even 1.6kg and was brought to the scales by Andrew Battersby on a “Brooky” coloured Redback vibe in about 7ft of water only 100 metres from the start line.

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The next round of the Daiwa Hobie Kayak Bream Series will be at Forster on the NSW Central Coast.

Full results: http://www.hobiefishing.com.au/content/final-results-round-10-daiwa-hobie-kayak-series-ansons-bay

More info: www.hobiefishing.com.au

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