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  #1  
Old 17-04-2013, 10:21 PM
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Kingpin Kingpin is offline
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How Walpole was Won - by Shane Owens

Hi All

After Team GLADIATOR Shane and Steven Owens won the Walpole Damiki Classic I asked Shane to write a report for our Facebook page. It's a great read so i thought i would share it here:

Prior to the Walpole classic which was held on the weekend just gone, i'd taken the time to get down to walpole to pre fish the system a few times. The estuary system was once regarded as one of australia's premium flats fishery for big black bream. A decade from then and what once was is all but a memory to many of the bream anglers who were fortunate enough to experience the system in its prime. The system these days required anglers to sorth through hundreds of small bream in order to find legal sized fish. And thats exactly what i experienced through out my pre fishing trips earlier in the year. Although fortunately i had locked onto a small area inside one of the rivers that connects to the main estuary. Repeatedly i would catch a bag of legals from this stretch and a few bigger bream. Ninety percent of the time i'd catch my fish on soft plastics. Bait breathe crabs to be exact. Hard bodies and vibes just werent attracting any attention at all. So with a game plan under my belt i felt better about tackling Walpole, which was going to be a hard event.

And thats just the way it panned out. The field of anglers was set to start from 12pm through till 5pm on the top of the high tide and fish through out outgoing tide. However a little saving grace on day 1 was the overcast weather and light winds. Heading straight to the area that i'd done well during my pre fish, we (myself and my old man, Steven Owens) were fortunate enough to have the area more or less to ourselves. The area i was targeting consisted of deep, snag lined banks with over hanging trees located downstream towards the estuary. There were 3 or 4 stretches of banks all very consistent in the structure i was looking for. All these banks were very near of each other so we werent going to have to move around much through out the day.
Having arrived at our spot i straight away spotted bream sitting high on the submerged snags sitting out of the bank. These bream were of legal size so i didnt want to spook them with the initial heavy rig i had on. This was a bait breathe crab rigged on a round 29 1/16th to work the bream sitting on the bottom. So i changed my hook to a TT hidden weight 1/28th 2HW which would make a soft plop on the surface and immitate a bug falling off the over hanging branches. Because it was such a light jig head it would then only sink slowly enough to keep the crab in the strike zone longer. And if the bream needed a little tempting, the sensitivite tip in our pysborg rods enabled us to work our plastics with such a finesse action that the bream just couldnt resist. The technique worked a treat. Within 15 minutes we'd filled our bag of 4 bream and upgraded once. My dad at the back of the boat worked other other types of plastics down deep. His role that he would play was to target the bream that would shoot to the bottom after being spooked by the fish i was hooking on the surface. This approach helped put a few legals into the well and also an upgrade aswell. After 45 minutes things started to die down but we were happy with what was a great start considering everyone else driving by was doing it pretty tough. By then the out going tide was starting to take hold and the action was begining to diminish. So we spent the rest of the day rotating through the 3 or 4 stretches that i planned to fish for the weekend. Fortuntely we managed another 2 or 3 upgrades to compile a bag we were satisfied with before we had to make our way back to the weigh in. Out of the 37 teams on day one only three teams managed to bring back a full bag of four bream which gave us a true indication as to how tough the system was fishing. Our bag of four was the heaviest by about 200 grams weighing in at 2.030 kg's. Which was a handy advantage leading into day 2 as holding onto top spot isnt easy as ive experienced in compeitions gone by.

After a few beers and a good feed later that night it was lights out in order to rise and shine early for day two. Day two greeted us with a completely different set of conditions. Sunny skies, virtually no wind and a rising tide was there to stay the entire day. Dad and i headed straight back to our spot that produced the instant action on day 1 only to be beaten to it by another team. So we fished the other side of the river which was one one of our banks that produced legals on day one. Not just a completely different set of conditions but we got off to a completely different start to the day. Forty five minutes ticked by without a legal in the well and a change of spot was needed. Eventually we fished the bank we started on yesterday and half way through the stretch a nice sized breathe snaffled the bait breathe crab. The fish produced a bream which just made the minimum legal size limit of 25 cm to the fork. Things started to look up but just when we got excited the bream wanted to play hard to get again. We moved around a bit trying to find just two more legals until the tide had risen enough for the bream to be sitting high in the snags again. Nothing but small fish plagued our presentations so with an hour and a half to go we returned back to our original locations. In the remaining time we had left, the fish were back in the area and we caught our last two bream and managed an upgrade. We produced a much smaller bag on day two of 1.445 kg's but with the 200 gram advantage from day one it was enough to give us the win.

Last but not least id like to make a big thanks to Gladiator! The new pysborg rods gave us that extra sense of finesse and accuracy when placing the lure close to the snag which was vitally important. The sensitivity enabled us to feel the soft bites from the shyest of bream. Plus the bait breathe crabs played a huge role in not only the comp but helping me develop a plan from my pre fishing. The elite industries rods came into their own too. The heavier rating of 2-4 kg's gave us the advantage of being able to coax some of the better fish out from snags. So thanks a lot to everyone at Gladiator, your support is greatly appreciated!


Cheers
Shane Owens
Attached Images
File Type: jpg SO1.jpg (45.7 KB, 417 views)
File Type: jpg SO2.jpg (65.9 KB, 418 views)
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  #2  
Old 18-04-2013, 12:03 AM
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Great read Shane, very interesting indeed and good to see another top angler prepared to share his winning ways (like Dror in Albany)
Well done Shane & Steve
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Old 18-04-2013, 02:08 AM
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Nice read Shano !!!
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Old 18-04-2013, 03:24 AM
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Thumbs up

Great read, and well done on the recent success and release of some great products.
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Old 18-04-2013, 03:40 AM
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Totally agree with Yardi , excellent read and good to see you sharing.
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Old 18-04-2013, 06:11 AM
Stephen Wilson Stephen Wilson is offline
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Its funny how someone was on your spot on day 2 they would have known you caught your fish there and headed straight for it.
If they didnt fish it before it is very unsporting and just goes to shows when there is a comp on sportsmanship goes out the window for some
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Old 18-04-2013, 06:38 AM
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Thanks everyone.

Stephen I'm sure it wasn't an act of bad sportsmanship. The rivers in Walpole aren't very big plus I didn't see this particular boater much on day 1. But I know it's their first time fishing Walpole and to me anyone can fish where they like on comp day. Whether they know you caught fish there or not. Theres no rule against it apart from dropping in too close. That's competition fishing and something I don't have a problem with.
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Old 18-04-2013, 06:45 AM
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Good write up!

You guys did really well (obviously) but the conditions and the bite we struggled through made it even more impressive.

Nice work!
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Old 18-04-2013, 06:45 AM
Stephen Wilson Stephen Wilson is offline
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no worries
i suppose if it is a small venue then not much you can say
there have been people that have actually gone out of there way to make sure the leader of day 1 has a clear run at a spot.
so different strokes for different folks

well done as well
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Old 18-04-2013, 08:23 AM
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nice report shano always good reading what u guys did which was obviously little different to others

ps well done steve aswell
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Old 18-04-2013, 09:18 AM
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Nice read Shano.

It is always good that winners are prepared to share with others how they managed to catch legal bream, especially when so many others struggled.

I hope that Walpole returns to its former glory but it has declined rapidly in recent years and if it is recreational fishing pressure that is the problem then I fear it will only get worse.
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Old 18-04-2013, 09:53 AM
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Congrats to you both on your 1st place,its good to see someone who shares there tips & knowledge finish top of the pile & also the unselfish attitude towards your fellow competitors...good for you mate
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Old 25-04-2013, 08:04 AM
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Hi Shano
Very interesting read and congrats on the win to the pair of you.
Looking forward to fishing against you again on the Murray in a few weeks in the yaks.
Cheers Brendon
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Old 25-04-2013, 08:56 AM
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great read shano,
bloody good effort
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Old 25-04-2013, 09:26 AM
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Hey Willo,
Comp fishing in WA is becoming a bit of a joke these days, nothing to do with the organisation or anything, Marine and fisheries have decided that a blanket 5 knot in all our rivers would be a good thing. Our systems are small in comparison to the east but even so at 5 knots it really restricts your movements and you dont often get to see where people are fishing. If it was part of your plan, getting to your spot at 5 knots doesnt really leave much space for a plan B
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