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That's one thing that does annoy me about the flatback minnows. They are so soft that they seem to be a one hit - new lure proposition. But then again that's probably what makes them good. Robeebee, Hodgey I had a ball. Definately put it on your list of things to do. Cheers, Greg

Do it Greg. The fishing was awesome! Apparently there were a few 9kg+ 5 fish bags pulled off another of the waterways too, and the trout comp was apparently good as well. Only thing that would stop me going back next year is the cost of the trip with the family in tow and the cost to get my boat down there if I decide to do it as a boater. Greg Roberta it was a great couple of weeks. No way they would film me though, I'm just a hack Andrew I've no secrets personally. I fished the lobbys for most of the 2 weeks as I have done for most of the last 6 months. The big bruiser I dropped at the net was hooked on a Daiwa presso minnow - the locals seem to love them. Also picked up a few the other morning on the flatback minnows (brown with the black back - can't remember the colour). Gulps worked well too.

I've just returned from a 2 week trip to Tassie to fish the ABT Bream events and all I can say is AWESOME! With great anticipation and excitement, I left for Launceston on the 21st of March with family in tow. Arrived and was confronted with a mix up with our hire car. We had ordered a Nissan x trail or similar and were presented with a Mitsubishi sedan. "Not likely" I said to the guy at the counter. With wife and 3 kids, associated luggage, fishing gear and an almost 8 foot rod tube, there was no way we were going to fit! We had to wait for an hour, but they upgraded us to a Nissan Patrol, so we didn't complain too much. Finally we arrived at St Helens about 9pm and checked in, which is when I saw my ride for the prefish at 5am the next morning. I had posted on a Tasmanian forum looking for a ride to prefish the 2 rounds and was kindly greeted with a generous offer from Leigh McKenzie to join him at St Helens. For those that don't know, Leigh is one of Tassie's local "guns", winning last years Derwent round, placing second the year before and backing up this year with another second placing. Prefish day: We were greeted with cold, wet, windy conditions. We struggled to find fish in Georges Bay, which consists of flats, flats, flats, flats, a few racks and you guessed it, more flats. The water is crystal clear and we barely saw a bream all day. I did however catch my very first Black Bream - a huge specimen of about 26cm to the fork. We did stumble on a few salmon schools though, butsting the bait up on the surface, and got into them on 3 pound gear. Day 1: I was paired with Graham Franklin. Graham had had a good prefish day, but again we struggled to find bream. We fished the flats hard all day and I finally managed to land 2 keepers, and Graham 1, in amongst the trevally, salmon and big taylor. Day 2: Fished with Steve Duff. I was pretty confident going out at 7am because Steve had done well on day 1, but the wind was howling at about 25-30 knots and it was just aweful! The fish had shut down and it was Donuts for both of us. Having said that though, about half the field failed to land a fish on the second day. We passed the time for the rest of the week touring down the east coast. Only pulled the rods out on 1 occasion and took the kids for a flick landbased. I did take note of a some great looking spots for my return trip next year. We arrived in Hobart and I prefished with Leigh again. there was no repeat of our dismal prefish at St Helens. This guy knows his home waters like the back of his hand. It was just mind blowing to fish with him. We would pull up to spots and have a few casts and 75% of the time we would hook up to great fish. We caught about 6 fish each, had a double hook up on kilo plus fish, and I smashed my PB which previously stood at about 950g with a 41.5cm approx. 1.5kg specimen. Day 1 saw me paired with local Paul Delphin. we managed to find fish straight away and on my 3rd cast of the morning, tight into bridge pylons, I hooked up to a good fish on 4 pound gear (which ended up being 40cm to the fork and 1.4kg). As Paul was going for the net, he too hooked up to a kilo fish. We made a move and Paul landed another 4 fish in quick succession to fill his bag. On one particular cast into a rocky point, I felt weight on the retrieve and hooked up. I said to Paul, I thought it was only a small fish, and then it realised it was hooked. Well then did it go off - it did 2 laps of the boat and when I finally got it to the boat Paul said "it looks like a bloody snapper!" It was definately bigger than my first fish, but at this point I could see the fish was only lightly hooked in the lip, and when Paul went to net it, he missed on the first attempt and it took another lunge and won it's freedom. I was a bit disappointed, because I thought I would have had close to 3kg for 2 fish. Things went a bit quiet from here, but late in the day I suggested that we make a move back to the bridge to fish the last hour and a half there with tide change. The move ended up being a good one because I managed another 3 fish in quick succession. I couldn't quite get my 5, but I had my chances. I pulled hooks on 2 fish and got blown away on the pylons by another. Irrespective I had a great day on the water, weighed a 1.4 kg fish in a tournament and got my best ever tournament bag at a tad over 4 kg for 4 fish, and was sitting in 7th place for non boaters at the end of day 1 - what might have been if we didn't drop that fish at the net... Another highlight for the day was Chris Wright's 7.05kg 5 fish bag. Chris was apparently so excited about his bag that he forgot to nominate his biggest fish for big bream. This fish was later weighed and came in at about 1.95kg! Day 2 was disappointing! I felt that 2 or 3 good fish would keep me in contention for a top 10 finish. The best that both myself and my boater could manage was donuts which dropped me into 18th place. Oh well, there's always next year. My other first for the trip was catching my first Trout weighing in at about 2 kg. I'd definitely recommend a trip to Tassie and particularly the Derwent to anyone. The bream there are huge and average over a kilo. Apologies for the long winded post cheers, Greg a few more pics

Thanks guys, I'm hoping that they do give me a run for my money! As usual, Tassie weather's pretty fickle - Speaking to a mate in Hobart, yesterday was 35 degrees, today was 18. cheers, Greg

I've been using Sunline Castaway for about 7 or 8 months now. 10lb is the same diameter if not thinner than 4lb fireline. I have virtually eliminated wind knots and it casts a mile. Cheers, Greg

I'm off to Tasmania this Thursday for the 2 rounds of the ABT. St Helens this weekend followed by the Derwent the following weekend. Hopefully the Bream live up to their reputations and come out to play. There have been some good reports from the Derwent of late. Can't wait to get into a few!!! Cheers, Greg

Unless fishing heavy structure, I'd say at least a rod length of 4 to 6 lb leader should be fine. You may lose a few fish but might find that you hook a few more too. cheers, Greg

Would have liked to fish it but had to make some compromises which rule me out. Fishing St Helens & Derwent later this month. Good luck guys. Cheers, Greg

Despite the wind and predicted boat traffic, I made a last minute decision to fish the Harbour & Parra this morning with my brother Craig & mate Tony. This was my first social fish in a long time and a very welcome change. We arrived at the ramp at the ungodly hour of 9am and off to the first spot. About 3rd cast, Craig's reel starts screaming with line peeling off at speed. He got it under control and landed this beauty 37cm fork length and PB. Great start to the morning. Next drift I pulled a 34cm and a 30cm. Nice. 3 fish in 2 drifts. 1 more drift and Craig had to get back to the ramp, so we left the fish biting. After dropping him off, we moved to the next spot. Over the next couple of hours we completed our bag and upgraded twice. Off the water by 1pm Caught a stack of fish today and had a ball. Cheers, Greg

Rockyjack, I fished on the weekend and boy was it tough. In 3 days of fishing (prefish & 2 comp days) we managed only 1 legal. we were plagued by undersize fish. lost count of how many fell just short of the size limit. We could have had flathead fillets for a couple of months though. Regarding your question about undersize fish, the comp size limit is 25cm to the fork of the tail. The few fish that I heard of that were rejected by the weighmaster were only just short of this and not the fisheries limit of 25cm to the end of the tail. cheers, Greg

not sounding promising. and add 70 odd boats into the equation... Cheers, Greg

Launched at the Nepean with my regular fishing partner Luke at 5.20am yesterday for my much anticipated first bassing adventure. Despite the excitement from the reports of the "bass fest" early in the week, I was sceptical about our chances targetting a new adversary and the reports of poor catch rates surfacing from Saturday on the river. We motored up the gorge in the mist and both commented as to how BLOODY COLD it was. Finally with much anticipation we both started casting our lures at all of the likely looking snags, rock walls, weedbeds, structure, structure, structure, for not even a touch. It was starting to look like getting out of bed had been a waste of time and that this bass fishing was all a hoax... About 9am we made a move quite a bit further up stream to a nice bend in the river which was still cast in shadow. We deployed our surface lures once more and out of nowhere a huge explosion on the surface which failed to hook up to Luke's jitterbug. With shaking knees and "f#@! did you see that?" Luke fired in another cast, followed by a surface explosion of equal intensity to the first, and came up tight to his first ever bass at 345mm. Hi fives all round, a few choice words and a few quick pics and it was released. With new found enthusiasm we got back to it and not long after I landed my first bass also - all 150mm of it on a R2S bubble pop. A bit dissapointing compared to Lukes first but a bass none the less. A few casts later I smashed my PB by 50mm and landed a 200mm specimen . We had to pull stumps at this stage, and would need to leave the upgrading to our next outing. Cheers, Greg

Greg you could also have one made to your exact specs. Last year when we went overseas with the kids, I had a sailmaker who does a heap of stuff for us at work fabricate a bag specifically to carry our stroller around whilst in transit. He made it to measure and it wasn't expensive. PM m if you want his details Cheers, Greg

Thanks Billy, we're looking forward to it. Just hope we can find some fish... Cheers, Greg Rockyjack, did you get out this weekend? were the results any better?

Heading up to Port Macquarie in a few weeks for the Bream Classic. Anyone raiders fishing it? Looks like a huge field - 71 boats entered so far... cheers, Greg

Nice ride. I'm sure it'll serve ou well. Cheers, Greg

Navionics have an office in Gladesville. Cheers, Greg

Top Stuff! The young fella looks stoked! Cheers, Greg

Congratulations on the fish Greg. I'm thinking of heading up there Thursday Arvo for my first attempt on the bass. Hope they still wanna play... Nice vid too. Cheers, Greg

congratulations on the PB Billy. It put up a good fight. We had some fun out on the water despite the "little dramas" and the fact that I really struggled to find the bream. You're welcome aboard any time... the boat is an Attack 470 with 115 ETEC. Don't want to hijack Billy's thread, there are pics here http://fishraider.com.au/Invision/index.php?showtopic=23519 cheers, Greg

I've found the Parra to be fishing harder of late. only managed a couple of bream per session for the last 2 or 3 that I've been out. Most have come on flatback minnows or zoom flickbaits. It will come good... cheers, Greg

great effort on the king. awesome catch on the light gear. Cheers, Greg

I thought you would have heard Greg. Word seemed to get around pretty quickly. Definately see you out on the river. Hope this warmer weather sticks around. cheers, Greg Thanks Iceman. Very happy and quick enough for me. Totally different fishing off this compared to the top ender and the glass is a much smoother ride. Cheers, Greg

just came back in and it is blowing Hard. Not particularly comfortable out there. cheers Greg

Absolutely Greg! Not quite a skeeter, and not quite as fast, but as close as I could afford and fast enough. I've no doubt you've seen this one around before... Attack 470 with 115 E-TEC After the first ride with Anja, my 7 year old, she asked me to instll seat belts. Ever since I got a ride in RichP's Skeeter at the Sydney ABT I've wanted something like this Cheers, Greg