Hawkesbury Abt..

[Pukka]

Well, the Hawkesbury ABT event is over for another year and an interesting event it turned out to be.

Personally, I didn't get the result, or the fish I wanted and I was a little disappointed I didn't improve on my weight from the first day.. but I had a good time donating SX-48's to the bream gods and I learnt a few lessons in extracting fish from the sharp stuff!

Great fishing Billfin on your first placing in the non-boaters section, awesome stuff! I guess you can relax now. Well done also to Nickothefisho for finishing second!

Congratulations to Lance S., really pleased to see you get up there knowing how hard you fished and thanks for all your help over the comp' weekend, very much appreciated.

Micky C, you're 'rack legend' status is still intact mate. Lovely to see you make the top 5

Congratulations to all the other qualifiers including Andy Howard 1st , Wacko - a highly commendable 13th, well done Jack - great fishing mate! And BillyK 'the comeback kid'!, nice one Billy!

Looking forward to Glenbawn and hopefully some more co-operative Bass!

Joe

[Guest Jocool]

As they say...Better luck next time eh Joe? Good on ya for being out there and trying. I don't think I would do any good in your position!

[Jethro]

Had a great weekend at the Hawkesybury also.

Weighed 4 fish for a shade over 2kgs. Finished 33rd so I am very happy with that result for my first comp as a boater.

Saturday first up I hit a rock wall that had produced 2 36s in 4 casts on Friday. Arrived at the spot at 7.30 and had 2 in the well by 8.00 and a 3rd by 9.00. thought I was in for a top day . I dropped 2 good fish just before 10.00 and my NB had 3 in the well. Then it all went quiet. We tried a few walls in mullet creek and a quick flick in the racks but could raise another fish.

Sunday the plan was to hit the same wall early. At about 9.30 we had 3 light knocks between us and it wasn't looking good. Got an average fish at 10.30 and my NB got stitched up in the weed. We tried a few other banks and couldn't raise another fish. We headed back into Pittwater at about 11.30 to try the boats but didn't do any good there either.

On the up side my mate I went down with finished 6th in the NB which was a great result and my NB from Saturday managed 1 fish on Sunday and finished 9th.

Had a few to many on Friday night and met a few of the guys from the boards. It was good to put a face with a some of the names.

I'll be back next year for sure.

[Jaso]

I went down to the weigh in to have a look. A couple of pics on the dodgy phone cam

The hardware lineup at the weigh in

Was a pleasure to watch this one swim away

[Tony S]

Hi Joe,

I belive you have just been bad luck I know you have been fishing hard in Hawksbury river. Wish you a better luck in the coming bream/Bass tournaments!

happy fishing

[Byron]

Congratulations to all those who contested this tough event...from Top 5 through to bottom.

Particular thanks to Mick C for a great days prefishing on the Friday. I kept all the secret spots mate!!

A big thanks also to both Jack Olmos and Dean Nash, my two boaters for the weekend. Enjoyed a top day on the water with both of you. Jack in particular put me onto a good patch of fish, but try as I might I could only get one fish to the boat. Think my timing was off but I certainly had my chances.

And finally, a big thanks to Dave W and Mick R for sharing a cabin and making the weekend a fine social occasion.

Great to meet a whole bunch of new faces to go with old names.

See you all at the next one!!

Byron

[Lance.S]

Thanks for the congratulations Joe.

I fished really hard at this round & knew I had to with such a massive feild, so it was such a releif to see I had made the cut into the Grand Final after 3 exhausting days.

Congratulations to everyone who caught fish on such a tuff weekend & it was great to catch up for a bit of a chat with a few fishraider members.

Cheers,Lance.

[Pukka]

Thank you Tony and Joe the Cool One

My dismal effort was the first thing I thought of this morning when I woke up and I've been 'grumpy Joe' all day as a consequence, swearin', slammin' phones down, insulting toast and kickin' possums, ( ) Readng your words of encouragment, certainly helped me get out of my doldrums and saved a good proportion of the local fauna around my house from being kicked, shot or embarassed, cheers fellas.

Joe

P.S. Hey Lance, are you going to post the pic' of the prefish-fish?

EDIT: Sorry just noticed you've posted it Lance - duh!

[Lance.S]

Hey Joe

From memory there is a secluded reserve not to far from where your at, that has a very good population of possums.

Don't worry mate we will smack a few at the Mega Bream.

Fish that is, not possums.

Cheers,Lance

[Lizardboy]

It was my first bream ABT and I had a top weekend, despite only weighing in one fish which happened to be a PB Thanks to my Boaters, I fished boats with John on saturday and rocky shoreline on sunday with Ross ( what a sweet boat) both of which I haven't really fished much before, it was a great learning experience. Congrats to all B's and NB's who entered.

Gus

[knapers]

HOW funny is this, my Dads standing in the Back ground and i asked him if he was going to the weigh in and he said he didnt know, lying %%%%% haha, he was in shock when i showed him the pic, smart ass.

[Sputnik]

Well, this was my first ABT event as well. And what a load of fun it was!

Here's how the days panned out:

My 5-month-old son decided that what I really needed to give me the edge on Saturday was no sleep on Friday night, so he put in a great performance, waking up about 4 times on Friday night - thanks, Luke, you're a pal!

However, I was still standing at the Bayview Boat Ramp as the dawn crept into the sky on Saturday morning. I'd been drawn with Gary, a really nice guy from Taree who has a little "Blue Fin" boat. Turns out he'd been tossing and turning all night worrying about taking it past West Head (with good reason, mind - the waves were a pretty good size). We got round ok, but he'd been crook all night with bad guts, which carried on well into Saturday morning, so he didn't enjoy the day much.

We pulled up at a rock wall in a small bay at the mouth of Cowan Creek (Gary was looking for a spot where he'd pulled a couple of stonkers on Friday - we couldn't find it). First cast with the old smelt Bass Minnow on a 1/8th head...twitch...twitch...wallop...28cm Bream. I'm thinking "way hey...this ABT stuff is a piece of piss". I now know that getting a fish first cast is the curse to end all curses in a tourney!

We tried several other areas and, despite getting a few hits here and there, couldn't stay connected to anything (I suspect a lot of them were Leatherjackets and Tailor anyway). We even hit Pittwater for the last hour or two, and discovered that, yes, it really is a "piscatorial desert", to quote Matt Taylor.

Day two saw me paired with Jason, who's fished the Hawkesbury quite a bit. His boat was an Ally Craft that could certainly take the knocks. Good job, too. We hammered out past West Head and went waaaaaayy upriver - at one stage we couldn't tell where we were because of the fog! Got to his "secret spot™", somewhere near Spencer. Bashed it for a while and I pulled nothing but undersized Bream - he got a keeper, though it was only a small one. Headed back, fishing a few mangroves and pontoons on the way. Hit Porto Bay and found that the fish were definitely "on" - another keeper for him, but more undersized ones for me. Also witnessed Joe (Pukka) coming unstuck from what sounded and looked like a really nice fish. As I said to him later, there were little old ladies in Brooklyn phoning the ABT to complain about the language - you get a nice echo in Porto Bay!

With it looking like getting back might be a very damp experience, we decided to head back to Pittwater - only to find that it was actually pretty glassy! Bugger - we could have stayed at least another half hour at Porto! In all, I caught about 5 Bream on Sunday - but all under-bloody-sized...

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed my weekend. Great to see how other people fish (techniques, lures, etc.), and really great to see some familiar faces getting into the money and/or the GF.

Now all I've got to do is work out a way to break it to the missus that the next few aren't quite as close to home...

Thanks again to Gary and Jason - you both helped make a relatively fishless weekend remain good fun.