Competition time !

[Nick Cuccovia]

OK bream nuts, we are well overdue for a competition.

So for our first comp this year, post up a fishing report with no more than 5 images. It can be a short or long report that is up to you. Lets see what you have been catching. Be creative!

Post your reports below, entries close Feb 17th and the winner will be announced on Feb 20th.

The prize is handy little Bream pack consisting of: two packs of plastics, three lures, jigheads and some leader.

good luck

[CK]

Great to see the site being resurrected.
Opening the "new posts" tab actually sees a full board as opposed to nothing.
Keep up the GREAT work folks

[DrLuvski]

Great to see this thread started up. Had a trip out today so thought I'd get this started. I took myself out of my comfort zone and headed off to Ewan Maddock Dam this morning to have a crack at targeting Bass. It was a late start and I got there at 8.30am. Found out that you need to have a permit to fish there now which took around 30 mins to sort out. The weather was amazing. No wind and nice and sunny. Probably not the best weather for targeting bass though. Two and a half hours of fishing later later I managed to avoid a donut by landing this fat healthy looking fish. Not huge but its a PB for me. Mission accomplished.
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[XeroTAO]

Awesome, hope this generates some reports

[Richo]

Originally Posted by DrLuvski

Great to see this thread started up. Had a trip out today so thought I'd get this started. I took myself out of my comfort zone and headed off to Ewan Maddock Dam this morning to have a crack at targeting Bass. It was a late start and I got there at 8.30am. Found out that you need to have a permit to fish there now which took around 30 mins to sort out. The weather was amazing. No wind and nice and sunny. Probably not the best weather for targeting bass though. Two and a half hours of fishing later later I managed to avoid a donut by landing this fat healthy looking fish. Not huge but its a PB for me. Mission accomplished.
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Geez he’s a fair ol fatty.. looks like a beachball.

[matt jorg]

I planned a catch-up with my brother well before Xmas but we had no idea it would be on one of the hottest days of the year down here! He lives in tumut Nsw so we decided to target some Murray cod Blowering dam is known for, so with the rig all set we left his house at 4pm for just an overnighter, on the snowy mountains highway just outside of tumut we were stuck in roadworks and the reality of the Heat was starting to kick in but we pressed on! So bloody hot....
Air temp of 42deg but on the tarmac a tad hotter!
See pic 1.
Jamie showed his local knowledge and with the dam quite low and dropping rapidly the best way to target them this time was trolling deep tight against the rocky banks, we put on some old trusty size 1 stumpjumpers and oargee ploughs to get down 6 metres plus to where the fish seemed to be sitting, a cast and retrieve was useless with the top water being way too warm. The only sign of life was the odd carp free swimming in the heat and us when we jumped in for a quick cool off!
After only an hour bro was onto our first little cod and the first I’d seen in the flesh in years!
We trolled on for another 20 mins then I got a small one that wasn’t even worth calling a mighty Murray cod! But along the same bank Jamie got a monster hit and we were on!
Pic 2
That was about it for the night and the sundown was a welcome relief from the heat. We set up a rough camp on a flat point we found across the dam and had a few too many beers, a quick feed as we were lucky to have no fireban somehow!???!??? My brother dropped his iPhone in the dam too which provided me some laughs!
Pic 3/4
After a terrible sleep in 25 deg overnight with mozzies ready to carry us away if they could get thru the aero guard and mesh we woke at 6am, packed up in 15 mins and hit the water again. I was hell bent on getting a good fish this morning but once again the guru on his home turf got the chocolates with another ripper! Couldn’t think of a better bloke to be out fished by...
Pic 5!
A great 18 hours on Blowering dam that’s for sure and I’ll be back to get that metery.
Cheers Matt

[matt jorg]

Took my 2 boys for a bank bash and anyone with kids will know the trips need to be short or boredom sets in...
A couple of soft plastic rigs were setup and I let them go!
Only half an hour was needed to have the boys excited and hopefully further hooked on fishing, my oldest catching his best bream yet at 37cm, he played it like a champ and is really starting to get the hang of luring
They’d still rather a trip to the skate park but I’m slowly winning them over

[BloodWorm]

Originally Posted by matt jorg

Took my 2 boys for a bank bash and anyone with kids will know the trips need to be short or boredom sets in...
A couple of soft plastic rigs were setup and I let them go!
Only half an hour was needed to have the boys excited and hopefully further hooked on fishing, my oldest catching his best bream yet at 37cm, he played it like a champ and is really starting to get the hang of luring
They’d still rather a trip to the skate park but I’m slowly winning them over

Nice one Matt, great to see the next generation getting hooked

[Breamtim]

This is a report from late last year but I'll post it anyway since its one of my most memorable fish I've ever caught.

21 October 2017

The south west of Victoria had just received a very solid soaking of rain for the last few months. After several weeks of muddy, fast flowing, unfishable water, the Hopkins River had started to clear. I put the kayak in at Jubilee Park around 4:30 in the arvo for an evening session. The previous day, I'd had a great session fishing an area known as Tooram Stones. This is a set of rapids blocking any saltwater from reaching upstream- its the upper limits of the estuary. After floods, this area produces some sensational fishing, as bream and estuary perch stack up below the stones trying to reach upstream areas. The bloke fishing next to me the previous day had caught many perch over 40cm in just a couple of hours, casting Dunks. Luckily for me, there was only that same boat at that spot- no one else knew the fish were on there. It's never super crowded there but once word gets out the fish are on, theres usually several boats in a small spot. Anyway, I proceeded to tying on a Daiwa Spike on one rod and a Grub on the other. After about an hour of drifting around the current, casting the spike in every inch of water, I become pretty unmotivated and decided to fish a small flat off to the side, to see if any bream were around. As soon as I reached the flat, I began noticing some serious sized 'boofs' on some mullet schools of the drop off. Could the fish be deeper today? I decided to throw the grub in this spot. After two or 3 casts, I felt a small tick in the line as the grub was sinking. I struck, expecting a small bream or perch to get off the donut. As soon as the hook went in, there was weight. The fish ran towards, the yak, then went deep, and stayed deep. Wasn't fighting like any perch, or bream I'd caught- maybe a mulloway? The fish went for several more powerful runs, before coming to the top, and dragging the yak around the area. Eventually, it popped up next to the yak, where I had the net waiting. It looked like a nice EP, 40-45cm. Once it was in, I held the fish up for a pic, when I realised it had a very round forehead and fat body. That's when I realised it wasn't an estuary perch after all- it was a bass. To some people a bass might be nothing too special, but here in SW Vic, most anglers go their whole lives without even seeing a Hopkins bass in the flesh. Most people believe they just wash out from farm dams during floods. I was over the moon. The bass measured up at 46cm, but was so fat, pics don't do much justice. Was great to see the fish swim off at the end for someone else to enjoy!

[Broomstick]

Great initiative! I haven’t been fishing much lately, but I did have one disastrous attempt…

So my girlfriend is on placement in Shepparton at the moment and last week I popped in for a visit and a fish. She is staying super close to the Broken River and my aim was to catch a cod on surface:



I flicked surface lures around all morning, but the only fish I saw were carp sunning themselves in the shallows:



In desperation I whipped out the bream gear and after lots of timid hits, I eventually landed this guy on a baby griffon:



I decided to head back to the car for a late breakfast when disaster struck – I locked my keys in my boat. So I called RACV and they said they’d be there in an hour. Too easy – I’ll take some bird snaps while I wait (the fishing gear was locked in the car too). I went down to the river and waited for an azhure kingfisher that I’d spotted earlier to come out of his home (a hole in the river bed), and when he finally poked his head out, I bent over to get the shot, and ‘plop’…my phone fell out of my pocket and into the river. I stripped off and eventually found it, but it was dead, which meant RACV had no way of finding me.

Two hours later I decided they weren’t coming, so I walked back to my gf’s place (about 4km’s in the 40 degree heat) in the hope that someone was home so I could call RACV again…they weren’t. But miraculously, my phone started working again, so I called RACV again and they said they’d be there in an hour. I legged it back to the car in the 40 degree heat but when I got there, the phone died again, and RACV couldn’t find me again. So after waiting for another 2hrs just in case they showed, I decided to wander back to my gf’s house again (it was 44 degrees by this stage) and wait dejectedly on the side of the road until she finished work (3 hours later). Pretty grim. But on the plus side, I had plenty of time to take photos of birds:

[Pistol]

Originally Posted by matt jorg

Took my 2 boys for a bank bash and anyone with kids will know the trips need to be short or boredom sets in...
A couple of soft plastic rigs were setup and I let them go!
Only half an hour was needed to have the boys excited and hopefully further hooked on fishing, my oldest catching his best bream yet at 37cm, he played it like a champ and is really starting to get the hang of luring
They’d still rather a trip to the skate park but I’m slowly winning them over

A 37cm bream there is outstanding! I caught my first bream 53 years ago 400m from there on the other side of the bridge in a row boat. I've got some cracking perch next to the boat ramp too.

[matt jorg]

Originally Posted by Pistol

A 37cm bream there is outstanding! I caught my first bream 53 years ago 400m from there on the other side of the bridge in a row boat. I've got some cracking perch next to the boat ramp too.

Cheers mate! I’m very lucky to call it my local that’s for sure.....

Great pics broomstick those wren and parrot pics are stunning!
Cracking bass tim👍

[Richo]

COMPETITION WINNER: Matt Jorg

Two great write ups pal, you will have a pack coming your way very soon. Im sure they will be put to good use by the budding breamer in your ranks

Can you please pm me your address, and we will get your pack in the mail

A special mention must go to DrLuvski, Broomstick and Breamtim for three great reports, very hard decision in the end, especially the cracking bird photos.

Cheers, we will have details of the next (March) comp up by the end of the week.

cheers

[DrLuvski]

Well done Matt Jorg. Hopefully the prize makes up for all the mozzie bites you ended up with on that trip.

[gsenaeef67]

Well done. Some top entries and hopefully there will be a lot more coming for the next comp.