Report from the SSBS Grand Final winning boat team
AFTER not having much of an opportunity to fish in the month leading up to the Squidgy Grand Final, a pre fish on Friday before the first day of competition was a must.
The weather conditions were similar to a day Guy and I found some quality fish in a particular spot, so I pulled up to have a look. First bream on was smoking and it got off, but not before destroying both trebles. I thought I should leave it, but tied on another blade and next cast saw a 34cm forker landed. Spot one was locked in. A few more shallow spots threw up the odd bream. I then went sounding out in the middle of the basin. Confident the Lowrance was saying bream I doubled around and yep, there were bream schooled up in 28 feet east of Jewfish bay. It was another spot we had to visit at some stage on comp day.
DAY 1
We pulled up on the first spot. The wind was from a different direction to the previous day, so we chose a different line to drift through. Water depth was 6-8 feet and small blades were the lures of choice. Guy’s first bream was 35cm to the fork, a nice start and proof that this area was holding good fish. While I was taking care of the whiting, Guy’s catching stonkers, a 38cm model is the second bream boated. The spot went a bit quiet for a while then I added a 31cm, which was looking pretty small compared to his mates. We fished a few spots for zeros, and then headed to the deep spot wide off Jewfish bay. It was about 10am and the wind was blowing 20-25 knots from the south. We put the parachute out and started what turned into a three and a half hour drift. We were right over the GPS marks and fish number 4 was caught, a little further and we had a bag.
Two upgrades came along the way on 7g blades. Both these fish were in great condition, each nudging 33cm to the fork. Our mega drift ended in near the flying boat ramp. We punched back around to Palm beach and our bag weighed 4.12kg, which saw us sitting in 2nd place (behind bloody Gilly).
DAY 2
We hadn’t fished the Shoalhaven River since the Squidgy show rolled up there in April. Our plan was to fish the same spots, which was almost fatal to our grand final campaign, as the river mouth drift gave up no fish. We came back to a spot in the channel that has patches of rock and rubble. After donating a few blades to the bottom (about 15), Guy had us off the dreaded donut with a 275mm tipper. We battled through the tailor and snags for another hour before fish number two was hooked. I thought it was a jew for a bit, it got in the raging run in tide and pulled a fair bit of line; we chased on the electric and a solid 36 forker was netted. It was about 10am and despite casting our arms off that was it for catching bream on the river for us.
Our two bream had a combined weight of 1.395kg, but it was enough with a total weight of 5.515kg to win the grand final of what has been a great series.
Tackle
We used Shimano Rareniums, Stradic FJ’s and Ci4s spooled with 3lb Power Pro line with about 15 feet of 5lb Shimano High Power leader on Loomis GL2, Rack Raider and Lure Project rods.
More info: www.ssbs.basinlureandfly.org.au
