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Augusta

Augusta

Barra Drama took centre stage

The beginning of spring brings with it the beginning of the ABT BARRA season and kicking things off with a bang each year is the inaugural Venom Rods BARRA Australian Open held over three nights on the full moon at Lake Awoonga. 18 teams took to the field in very challenging conditions with the goal of entering their five biggest barra each session into the ABT Tournament Series app, where a weight is allocated to each fish based off its total length. Team Barra Drama (Keegan Hayden and Geoff Newby) took out first place with an 8/10 limit for 82.13kg, while in second place was reigning champions Team Schwerin Concreting/Bass to Barra, Jake Schwerin and Dylan Mott, with 6/10 fish for 52.34kg.

BARRA DRAMA

Ironically, Geoff Newby and Keegan Hayden of casts here and there as they quickly figured out that there were no fish being caught in the daylight hours and their time was better spent relaxing!

Although the first session was uneventful, the team had caught onto

Scan the QR code to see the Winning team interview

a few hints the lake threw them in the first session and decided to work on them in the second.

“We were spot-locked in Cormorant Bay casting when the Schwerin Concreting boys pulled up a couple hundred metres away and we watched Dylan catch a metre fish,” Geoff said, adding “that gave us the confidence that we were in the right area, we just had Awoonga was tough but the Barra Drama boys, Keegan and Geoff, figured them out in the end. Catching more fish for the event than any other team, they took home the $6,000 first place cheque.

The victorious team caught all their fish in the night hours of each session and spent the daylight hours watching the footy and relaxing.

Team Barra Drama didn’t have a lot of drama with the Awoonga barra once they figured them out.

The boys spent the daylight hours of each session watching football and making a few lazy to adjust the approach”.

The decision to return to Cormorant Bay and work the bank instead of spot-lock opened their eyes as to where the barra were sitting and why they weren’t catching.

As the lake has risen recently, a channel approximately 15ft wide has formed between the bank and where the old weed finished, running parallel with the bank. With water temperature at 21ºC – relatively cold for barramundi – the fish were searching for the warmer water on the edges and, as such, were cruising in this channel.

Noticing the channel, the boys began to target it with instant results, weighing a full five fish for

One of the very few teams to catch a fish with the sun still out, Schwerin Concreting got the session started right with this cracking barra.

RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Place Team Fish Weight(kg) Payout

1 Barra drama

8/15 2 Schwerin concreting/bass to barra 6/15 3 Samaki/SCMED 5/15 82.13 52.34 50.58 $6000 + Big Barra prize $3000 $2500

4 Venom 4/15 39.93 $2000

5 Fish with me 3/15 30.01 $1000

6 Imakatsu/Dobyns rods 7 Sporty’s/EJ Todd 8 Hot reels 9 Fishing Monthly 10 Barra whispers 3/15 2/15 2/15 2/15 2/15 29.44 25.55 20.52 20.35 18.36 no payout Big Barra prize no payout no payout no payout

44.63kg bag in the second session and becoming the only team to weigh a full bag for the whole event.

Due to the fish sitting in the back of the weed or on top of it, sounders were rendered almost useless so the pair didn’t rely on their electronics and instead fished what was in front of them. the naming sponsor Wilson. SCHWERIN

CONCRETING/

BASS TO BARRA

The reigning champions had a red hot go at making it back-to-back wins and were far from disgraced by finishing in second place. This year Jake Schwerin teamed up with Dylan Mott, in replace of his old man,

Jono Bale won the Day 2 big barra with this Molix-crunching 105cm specimen. Reigning Open Champion, Jake Schwerin, teamed up with Dylan Mott this year and almost went back-to-back victories if not for a heroic second session from Team Barra Drama.

They happened upon a small point with trees running down one side, the weed channel down the other and a small shrub out off it where they decided to spot-lock about 30m off. Rolling their lures out of the channel and over the old weed bed that was hidden 3m under the surface was when the bites came, as the fish would use the bankside edge of the old weed bed as cover.

Geoff, using his 7’10, 10lb ACM custom rod built on a Bushido Warrior blank, fanned his casts around the point using a 1/2oz black and gold Squidgie Slick Rig with a stinger hook and a chartreuse dipped tail.

Meanwhile, Keegan specifically targeted the right-hand side of the brush pile with the same lure but on a G. Loomis EDGE Black Widow paired to a Shimano Stella FI 4000 and spooled with 20lb Sufix 832 and 55lb Schneider leader.

“We like to call it boring them to death, just hit that same spot over and over,” said Geoff in their winner’s interview.

All except one of their fish fell to the Slick Rig and the only exception was the session three Big BARRA at 105cm, caught early in the night (6pm) on a Zerek Live mullet in fat betty colour. This won them a Venom baitcast rod each thanks to didn’t fish any deeper than about 7ft the whole time”, said Jake.

The main edges they targeted were red gravel banks that are found scattered around the dam, as the weed finds it hard to grow on these banks when the water rises. This meant there was a more defined channel at the back of the weed for them to fish without getting hung up on weed.

Jake’s bait of choice was an out of the packet Squidgie Slick Rig with half the lead cut out of the jighead to slow the sink rate down. “Some guys like to change the hooks, but I’ve never had an issue with the standard hook, so I don’t bother,” Jake said when asked about bait alterations.

A couple of very happy VENOM Big Barra prize winners. Each angler took home a VENOM rod from Wilson for catching the biggest barra in each of the three sessions.

He used the Garmin LiveScope transducer in perspective mode on his boat to watch fish up to 100ft away swimming out of the channel in the back of the weed and up on top of the weed bed, and deliver his bait with pinpoint accuracy.

A self-confessed G. Loomis EDGE rods fanatic, Jake used a Delta 744 baitcast model matched with a Daiwa Zillion and spooled with Toray F4 braid and 80lb fluorocarbon leader.

On the other hand, Dylan used a Berkley Hollowbelly on a 5/8oz Prolatees jighead with no stinger hook set up to avoid catching weed. The Berkley Hollowbelly accounted for a 99cm fish early in the last session that made a huge difference to their final bag weight.

Dylan’s rod of choice was a Dobyns Sierra 704 spin paired with his ‘lucky’ Shimano Stradic 5000.

Proving to be a consistent team year after year, we’re excited to see how far the boys can go next year for the 2023 BARRA Australian open.

this year and with years of experience between the two they were able to put six fish in the boat across three sessions on a very tough bite.

The boys clued onto the same pattern as Team Barra Drama, although instead of targeting the one area they had almost a dozen spots they jumped between all throughout each session, searching for active fish.

“I couldn’t narrow it down to one specific spot, we caught fish all over the place. The key for us was just not to stay in one spot, we kept moving and targeting the big channels in the weed. We also

Deer in the spotlight gets the job done

The Gladstone round of the DAIWA BREAM series sponsored by Rapala has become a popular stop on the tour drawing more anglers each year. It’s expansive reef structure and big tides make it a spectacle many anglers from the southern areas don’t often experience and the chance at a pikey bream and many other by-catch make it an alluring venue. This year, 17 boaters and 14 non-boaters made up the field and, being the last stop on the tour, it was a make or break round for those in the AOY race. Steve Morgan was able with a 2nd place, however 2022 was his year, smoking the rest of the field by 1.5kg in the end with a 10/10 limit for 5.935kg. He paid close attention to the tides, keeping notes and being very technical in his approach to fishing an arena with such imposing tidal movement. He said,

“I think the current has a lot more to do with how and when the fish want to eat instead of the actual tide height. The current didn’t start running until about 9am, which is when the fish started to push up onto new ground and the bite window opened, until it got too high and the fish pushed up Tom Deer made his first victory a commanding one, winning by 1.5kg from the rest of the field.

The champion got it done fishing super shallow using a couple of his favourite crankbaits from Atomic and some quality gear from Frogleys Offshore.

to cinch yet another AOY title with his 2nd place, finishing with a total of 487 points over Mark Crompton (474 points).

Tom Deer won his first ABT event convincingly by over 1.5kg with both pikeys and yellowfin in the bag. Meanwhile in the non-boater division, the GOAT from the back, Stuey Walker, has done it again taking out his 11th win from the back deck with a 6/6 limit for 2.886kg.

DEER CLAIMS FIRST

BOATER VICTORY

Tom Deer has fished ABT events for 15 years now and he’s come close to a win at Gladstone before

Scan the QR code to watch the Boater Winners Interview

into places I couldn’t fish, closing the bite window.

“I found the yellowfin prefer the sandy, plain banks and flats, and the pikeys hang out on the reefy, rocky structure, so they’re the areas I targeted”.

Once the tide was right, Tom pushed up shallow, targeting fish in 2-3ft of water with a combination of crankbaits and topwater.

He used both the mid and deep iterations of the Atomic Crank 38 in rock crab and muddy prawn colour and threw each according to the depth he was fishing. He also had a Bassday Sugapen handy for when he wanted to target fish in less than a foot of water.

“Crankbaiting is a favourite technique of mine so I used the crankbait a lot more. However I always had the Sugapen on hand if it got too shallow to fish a crankbait without getting snagged and spooking fish,” explained Deer.

His crankbait set up was a 7’4” Samurai rod paired with a Daiwa TD Sol spinning reel and spooled with 6lb Unitika braid and 6lb Unitika leader, prioritising the length of the rod for maximum casting distance. His other setup was identical, only it was spooled with straight through fluorocarbon.

Tom’s boat is a Stacer Assault Pro fitted out with a Minn Kota Talon and his ability to run super shallow and hold there once he found fish was critical to his success.

“The Talon meant I definitely caught more fish. Having the ability to push up shallow and then hold position perfectly meant once I found fish, I could target them because almost every time I caught one I could put the Talon down and catch two or three before moving on,” he said. Although Deer fishes competitively he still has a pretty simple philosophy – just have fun, winning

Brisbane’s Steve Morgan sealed yet another BREAM AOY trophy with a 2nd place finish in the last qualifying round of the year.

BOATER RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Place Angler Fish Weight(kg) Payout

1 Tom Deer 10/10 5.935 $1700 2 Steve Morgan 10/10 4.464 $900 + $250 1st Merc bonus 3 Jamie McKeown 10/10 4.349 $600 + $500 Buck n’ Big prize

4 Michael Slade 10/10 3.835 $500

5 Blake O’Grady 10/10 3.691 6 Mark Crompton 10/10 3.414 7 Harry Schofield 6/10 3.311 8 Peter Cashman 9/10 3.275 9 Wally Fahey 10/10 2.849 10 Sam Peck 9/10 2.817 $125 2nd Merc bonus $75 3rd Merc bonus + Maui Jim Mystery weight no payout no payout no payout no payout

is a bonus. “I’ve mainly fished for fun for the past few years. It’s sort of like golf, you don’t have to beat the people you’re up against you just have to have a nice day, do well and feel good about it.”

MORGO WRAPS UP

ANOTHER AOY

After Tom Deer’s heroics at the top of the list, it was

Scan the QR code to watch the Field Highlights

up to the rest of the anglers to fight it out for second place. Needing a high finish to seal the 2022 Angler of the Year title, Brisbane’s Steve Morgan registered his highest placing in the Gladstone arena to record a 10/10, 4.464kg limit consisting of 80% pikey bream and 20% yellowfin.

“I’ve fished each iteration of the Gladstone BREAM event since we began coming here, and each year I learn a little more about when and where to fish in various tidal and weather conditions. Morgan said,

“This year was the first time I fished the Calliope River and we happened across a sensational pikey bream topwater bite as the tide rose into the mangroves on the overcast and stormy day one.

“And sight casting pikey bream is about as fun and easy as bream fishing gets. You see the black fish easily in the clear water and if you land it remotely near them, they swim over and try to eat it,” he continued.

The topwater session finished a day that started on the Aluminium Smelter Bridge on the South Trees Inlet, throwing the Rapala 4cm Fat Jack in black.

“Pikeys love a crankbait fished really slowly, and a bonus is that if there’s a pack of fish coming out after your lure, you can usually catch multiple fish from the same area,” Steve suggested.

He fished the Fat Jack on a Daiwa Infeet crankbait rod matched with a Daiwa Sol reel and 4lb Sufix Advance FC straight through. The topwater (a Tiemco Soft Shell Cicada) was delivered on a 6’8” Never far off the money, 3rd place Jamie McKeown also took home the $500 Buck n’ Bass Big BREAM prize.

The G.O.A.T. from the back of the boat continues to smash his own records, notching up his 11th qualifying win and 7th Non-boater AOY title.

your success.”

The crankbait and topwater eating pikeys bream from day one were a far cry from the fishing on day two with sunny, calm conditions making the fish skittish.

“Day 2 was a lot harder and I got extremely lucky with my big fish. It went straight into a snag and 9 times out of 10 I would lose that fish but today it was just meant to be. I only got 3 fish on day two so that was really lucky”.

At 31.5cm it bumped his bag weight up almost 200g heavier than his day one bag and ultimately won him the event as he only finished 180g ahead of 2nd place.

The new X-link FC leader from Daiwa was untested for Walker until this event but it earned a pretty strong testimonial from after being put through its paces on day two.

“That was the first

Infeet with a Certate, 6lb Sufix 832 braid and an 8lb Sufix fluorocarbon leader.

Day two was calm and sunny, which dictated a switch to spots that fished well several years ago.

“For me, the open-water Gladstone Harbour rock bars fish well when there’s minimal wind. So after the first hour at the bridge I ran to a series of rock points in the eastern harbour that had fished well in the past.

Scan the QR code to watch the NonBoater Winners Interview

The pikeys weren’t as big as I’d hoped, but they were big enough to seal second place,” he continued.

“I finished the day in the Calliope but found the topwater action in the river a lot slower in the calm, bright conditions – I’ll remember that for next time,” Morgan concluded.

All up, he logged around 40 bream into the app and described the Gladstone breaming as ‘excellent’.

All bream for the event were recorded on the ABT Tournament Series app and the images forwarded to the Gladstone Healthy Harbours Partnership,

Place Angler

1 Stuey Walker 2 Steven Dee 3 Wade Walker 4 Shaun Egan 5 Mark Street 6 Aaron Bonser 7 Allan Lavell 8 Sean Bicknell 9 John Glover 10 Lance Marsh where they are used to help monitor waterway health.

BUCK N’ BASS BIG

BREAM PRIZE

Gold Coast’s Jamie Mckeown won the $500 Buck N’ Bass Big BREAM prize after tying with Harry Schofield, both on 863g. With Jamie claiming the prize by landing his first fish. THE G.O.A.T

STRIKES AGAIN

We’re not sure what it is that makes him such an exceptional non-boater, however we just have to accept Stuey Walker winning a couple of qualifying events each year is just inevitable. He makes this his 11th qualifying win and now his 7th AOY title, standing unequalled in both records.

Stuey fished with Morgo on an overcast day one up the Calliope arm where Morgo targeted the pikeys on topwater and Stuey chose to throw the new Infeet Kodachi Finesse crankbait from Daiwa.

Trading compliments with Morgan in their winner’s interview, Stuey said “The fish I saw you catch yesterday and the way we went about it was bloody impressive.”

Morgan offered his insight into why he thinks Walker has been so successful.

“From a boater’s perspective, you’re always doing something just that little different to us and accessing different fish, I think that’s a big part of

NON- BOATER RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Fish Weight(kg) Payout

6/6 2.886 Daiwa Baitjunkie prize pack 6/6 2.702 Daiwa Baitjunkie prize pack 5/6 1.854 Daiwa Baitjunkie Prize pack 6/6 1.703 Prolure prize pack 4/6 1.559 Atomic prize pack 5/6 1.554 Rapala prize pack 5/6 1.298 Keitech prize pack 3/6 1.179 Toadfish prize pack 5/6 0.912 Toadfish prize pack 3/6 0.911 Toadfish prize pack time I’ve used it and no complaints whatsoever, that stuff was really, really good,” said walker.

Stuey still uses his famous Daiwa Silver Wolf rods that he is known for, only giving them a new engine this year in the form of a couple of Daiwa Luvias Airity reels spooled with his favourite Daiwa Tournament Evo 8 braid.

His advice to all non-boaters is, “Just don’t give up, even when it is tough just keep casting. Also, watch what’s happening at the front of the boat, a few of those guys know a thing or two and you’ll always learn something.”

East Coast Bream Bill Maguire Memorial Round 1

I was approached by Gary Brown and asked if we would consider continuing an event that has been running since the passing of a great tournament angler and friend to many anglers, Bill Maguire Memorial. We were happy to include this event in our calendar as a mark of respect to Bill who was held in such regard by many anglers that they ran a stand-alone bream event once a year in his honour.

Gary Brown fished with Bill, and said:

“Bill Maguire was an angler I met when I started to fish bream tournaments over 16 years ago. Over the years we not only competed together and against each other up and down the East Coast of NSW and parts of Victoria, we also fished socially together.

“The deal with Bill was that he would bring the lunch (usually cold KFC), his outfits (usually four or more), and so many lures that you could have opened a tackle shop with the amount he brought along.

“Through wind, rain, hail, thunderstorms and sunshine we would fish these tournaments together.

“Before going we would work out a plan of attack and then put it into place to try and do the best we could. Over the years we did manage to get into the top ten several times, but we also managed to come back empty-handed a couple of times.

“I remember one time we were fishing in a tournament on Sydney Harbour (Bill’s home turf) and I dropped a very large bream right at the boat. Bill was amazed that I just calmy cast out and started working the blade back to the boat to try and hook another bream. He said that he would have at least sworn a bit!

“Not only did he share his knowledge with me, but he was also only too happy to share it with many other anglers and I am sure that even today those anglers still use those techniques today.

“I would also like to thank the members of the Western Sydney Bream and Bass Club for dedicating this round to the memory of Bill and the following Round 1 on Sydney Harbour in the future East Coast Bream Series.

“In my heart I will always treasure the times that we spent fishing together and I will never forget him as a great fishing buddy and mate.”

We started this round with 42 teams after a couple had to withdraw late because of covid (still impacted on our daily lives).

The morning was glorious with the sun rising over the harbour as we set the boats on their way. 1ST: TEAM MCBARRON

CONSTRUCTION

Team McBarron Construction, Jarrod McBarron and Brenton Spinks, took out first place with 5/5 fish for 4.41kg and won $2,100. Jarrod talked us through the day:

“Having not fished the harbour for over a year, we stuck to what we knew best and ground it out west of the bridge. Knowing the tide was up early and would be key for those early edge bites.

“Using crab like imitation we spent early on throwing lures tight to rock edges. Getting a few early fish and some confidence. From there we spot hopped our way up to the river to fill a bag.” 2ND: TEAM BING LEE

In second place was Team Bing Lee with Jorg Van Husen and Scott Liddicoat, who took home $1,100 for 5/5 fish weighing 3.7kg. Jorg said,

“A decision was made to head upriver and follow the tide. We started fishing the bay up from Mortlake Ferry within the first 45 minutes and had our bag of five bream.

“We got nothing big, but having five fish early let us relax more and make the rest of the day more enjoyable.

“Going from bay to bay, fishing the flats, we upgraded centimetre by centimetre throughout the morning picking up a fish or two in each of the bays. By 9.30am we were fishing the flats around Ryde Bridge where we picked up three good bream to bring our bag over 3kg.

“As the tide turned, we did the same thing as in the morning, we followed the tide back out, fishing the bays we hadn’t fished earlier on. Working the point where the water was making an eddy seemed to have the bigger fish sitting on them, and we managed two final upgrades, which helped our bag over 3.5kg.

“We managed 17 legal bream in total all were caught in depths between 3-7ft using 4lb leader and 6lb braid. Using 2” camo shrimps on a 1/16oz jighead and ZX blades in black accounted for all the fish on the day.

“I was using a light 7ft G.Loomis IMX rod paired up with a 1000 size Stella reel. Scott was using his Infeet 722 ULRS rod with a Shimano Exsense C3000 MHG 3RD: TEAM EDGEY BITES Adam Hughes and Matt Green of Team Edgey Bites sat in third position with a cheque for $600 and a bag of 5/5 fish weighing 3.18kg. Adam said:

“Sydney Harbour is one of those arenas that we both look forward to and dread all at once. From a technique perspective it has something for everyone and the variety of structure available is eye watering. On the flip side the scale of the system (and the ferries) can leave you floundering if you can’t find something that works early. It’s very easy to waste too much time chasing fish up and down the harbour.

“It was for this reason, and because neither of us had been to the harbour since 2018, we decided to start our day in Hen and Chicken Bay, a spot we are both comfortable with.

“The plan going in was to try use the mud flat and hulls in Hen and Chicken to get our bag then venture out into the main harbour and Parramatta River to fish poles in current once the tide started to push out for upgrades.

“The plan started well with Matt picking up our first fish on his second cast of the day. A healthy 36cm fork off the mud flat on a Juro. Two casts later and it was my turn, a just legal fish on a ZMan motor oil grub. Naturally, this gave us a bit of faith in the plan and so we stayed on the flat and ground out a small bag of reluctant fish anchored by Matt’s 36cm.

“Sticking to the plan we made our way out of Hen and Chicken after checking some of the dirtier boat hulls for one non-upgrade fish and made our way up the Parramatta River. However, after 2 hours of hunting around for an upgrade we couldn’t really crack a pattern that gave us any confidence. There wasn’t as much tidal movement as we expected, and the water had no colour at all.

“Noticing that a nice NE breeze had popped up we made the call to race back to Hen and Chicken and to see if the breeze would make the mud flat any more active. It did, a little. The bite was still very timid and both of us ended up switching from plastics to blades to convert short strikes into boated fish. This really worked for us, and we were able to upgrade the four smallest fish out of our original bag. Unfortunately, nothing of the quality of our first fish.

“Heading back to the weigh in we guessed we only had a little over 3kg and knowing what Sydney Harbour is capable of we hoped it was enough for a top 20 finish to keep our Grand Final qualification on track. Needless to say, third was a pleasant shock!

“Standout lures for us were Juro Firebaits in colour 05, Savage Gear Slim Minnow in purple haze and Daiwa Steez blades in olive and black colours.

“Huge thanks to Western Sydney Bream and Bass Club for running the event and making bream comp fishing accessible to south coast anglers again.”

This was a terrific event and I want to thank Lesley Maguire for attending the day and presenting all the winners, as well as putting up, all the prize packs for five teams and the Bill Maguire Perpetual trophy, which will be contested for every year on the Sydney Harbour round.

Congratulations to all the winners. – ECBS

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