Hobie Kayak tournament 24-25 February St Georges Basin- Ya gotta know when to hold em and know when to fold em

[Bennyg78]

Hi Raiders!!

Just thought Id put a quick report in on my recent  outing at the Hobie fishing competition down at St Georges Basin on the 24-25 February.

For those who don't know how the hobie comps are run and down it goes a little something like this:

• The requirements are for you to catch a bag of 3 bream each day that must be legal + 1 cm from the governing body's legal requirement( in NSW becomes 26 cm)
• The comps usually run from 7-2pm each day conditions pending.
• its a weigh in event so all fish are that are used in the competition are to be kept in a livewell and handled carefully ( the Hobie staff, take fish care very seriously)
• There are various prizes for big bream, monster mover, youth division, masters division, women's division and first timers
• The big money prizes are handed out from 1st to 5th, with angler of the year point handed out to people who caught fish which is important if you're fishing cumulative points.
• The person with biggest cumulative bag over the twos days wins.

Anyway onto the comp, well almost heres a little preramble about last years event. The comp last year as run in September, the conditions were very hard to fish in with a strong 35 km/h wind blowing north easterly each day. I really struggled to find fish as did a lot of the field with me only weighing in one fish on day 1 .

 

Fast forward to this year and the comps being run in Feb, much more favourable time of year for the fishing. I had the opportunity to go and have a prefish on the Friday. The launch point for the comp is at a place called Basin View ( which is pretty most the most north eastern point on the Basin.) and man was it hot as heck 36 degrees.  For those who have never fished or been to the basin its a huge body of water with very little to no man made structure like jetties, pontoons and bridges, there's a truckload of weedflats and  shallow dropoffs. My plan for prefish was have a look and fish some of the edges along the eastern side, fishing the shallow edges for a few hours. I ended up at bonito point and turning into that bay, it was boiling alive with bait being hit by bigger fish. I  was throwing topwater lures (of course) and got a nice mid 35 cm fish. I then turned back and headed back to launch as a huger storm was predicted to hit. I was pretty lucky to strap the yak on the roof and the stom hit with some thunder, lightning and strong winds blowing trees down. I headed to the accom and later to the local brewery for dinner and beer with some mates.

 

 

 

 

 

Day 1

We had a big field of 92 anglers in the comp, which makes for an interesting proposition as to where everyone will go. Due to the strong southerly wind forecast the arena was shortened with the front end of the basin off limits, luckily this didn't affect where I was headed- back to the prefish spot

My plan was to head back to bonito point and head up the north eastern side of it fishing the shallows and then into the shallow creek and then hit the north western side on the way out. One of my mates also tagged along as he loves to fish the shallows too. I raced my ass off to get there first and luckily it was us and two other competitors and that was it.

We proceeded to fish topwaters including bent minnows, suga pens and slippery dogs getting plenty of taps but no commitments ( sounds like a dating story). My mate switched to an unweighted bream prawn and ended up with the 80+cm flathead pictured. I kept on the topwater and ended up with a just legal flat head on the bent minnow. We then proceeded up into the creek with me catching another two flatties on the sugapen ( I swear one of them was a bream.) 

I even manage a couple of garfish on the suga pen!

No more hits in the shallow creek, its at this time my mate decides to leave me and fish another edge closer to launch while I decide to work the eastern side of the bay. By this time I am throwing a shallow crank alternating with topwater.  The southerly wind is really starting to blow, I decide to use this wind as casting assistance and send my sugapen flying, whilst working it back it gets smashed by what I am hoping to be a great bream! This fish runs me hard into the cockle weed so much so that I cant make out what kind of fish it is and after clearing out the weed from its face YES its a good bream. The fish is a tad under 35 cm and weighs in at 550 grams, yes a good one to start the bag but this is at 12 o'clock I go to turn the livewell on and its died a quick death, I keep the fish in the water in the net while I try to get my livewell working but it won't. This resulted in me hand bailing the livewell  with 21L of sea water from my 500MlL water bottle an exercise in patience. Anyway livewells full and in goes fish No.1.

 

 

 

 

 

Its at this point that times ticking and its around 12:30 pm , and I really want to get back to the opening point, Bonito point as I just had a feeling about it . It takes me about 30 or so minutes to get there and now theres less than an hour left in the competition with probably a 30 minute pedal back. I begin casting a shallow crank around and literally on the last cast I feel tap tap tap ban and I am on this fish feels like a good one and I pull up a bigger fish going closer to 36 cm and weighing over 650 grams. In the well it goes and its now 1:15 pm, I better pedal my butt back and I am praying that the fish in the well stay alive. Whilst pedalling I periodically stop to put fresh aerated seawater in the well.

 

Luckily I get back to the Launch in time and fish looking healthy, would have been great to have 3, but I am happy with the two I have.

Now to the weigh in. The live weigh in process at the Hobie Comps is quite exciting as leaderboards chop and change. Competitors grab a bag put their fish in it and then take it to a bump tub with aerated water and wait for their names to be called up. Well my name came up and my two fish weighed 1.22 KG, this had me in in 30th spot overall.

Day 2

My plan for day 2, was to head back to the same bay and fish the outer points and then head further around to jewfish bay. I was fast again off the line and got the bay 1st, however  I am struggling to get some hits I did decide to put a bigger bent minnow on to try and elicit some bigger fish. I manage to catch two Tailor and a toad fish but no bream.

I am throwing cranks and topwater and getting no substantial hits, its at this time I decide to leave the bay and fish the edges heading to Jewfish bay. I think this proved to be my undoing here as I was trying to get to places instead of fishing the water in front of me, which resulted in me not being able to commit to an area and giving me 🍩  for the day.

At the conclusion of day 2 I watched my placing slip from 30th-60th place, some lessons learned and alot of fun had!.

It might take me another comp down at the basin before I really understand how to fish it!

 

Edited February 28 by Bennyg78

[ireallylovefishies22]

Well done of the quality fish! And congrats to your mate for that monster flatty 💪

[Little_Flatty]

That’s a nice report there Benny and well done on a couple of nice fish. Sounds like tough going but that’s the way it falls sometimes.

Would love to one day get down to a comp like that, but will need to wait some years before I can even consider it. The idea of fishing for a whole weekend and learning off fellow fishos is what draws me in!

[faker]

So the rumours are true that bream fisho  bag quite a few flathead in bream comp as by catch

[Bennyg78]

4 minutes ago, Little_Flatty said:

That’s a nice report there Benny and well done on a couple of nice fish. Sounds like tough going but that’s the way it falls sometimes.

Would love to one day get down to a comp like that, but will need to wait some years before I can even consider it. The idea of fishing for a whole weekend and learning off fellow fishos is what draws me in!

Mate it is an awesome fishing classroom and you certainly learn a thing or two about planning and preparation if nothing else

[Green Hornet]

Shame it was a tough weekend fish wise @Bennyg78 but a couple of nice fish on day 1 was a pleasing result. Bonito Point/One Tree Bay usually fishes okay along the western side, so the fish might have been shut down with the approaching southerly.  
Great report and better luck next comp.

[linewetter]

Really nice fish you caught! I can only imagine the excitement when you realized the first fish was a bream after you cleared the weed off it 😁 Never been to a comp before so really interesting to read how it goes down. How do you win the monster mover award? 

Edited February 29 by linewetter

[Bennyg78]

1 hour ago, linewetter said:

Really nice fish you caught! I can only imagine the excitement when you realized the first fish was a bream after you cleared the weed off it 😁 Never been to a comp before so really interesting to read how it goes down. How do you win the monster mover award? 

Hi mate, monster mover is award to the person who has the biggest weight differential between day 1 and day 2. Typically this usually happens to someone who donuts on day 1 and catches a good bag of fish on day 2

[kantong]

well done @Bennyg78 and congrats on the fish. It takes some commitment to get yourself prepped for comp and to catch fish under competition conditions is fantastic! A great report, thanks for sharing

[Robbo from Sydney]

A great report  @Bennyg78 I love the amount of thinking and planning that you put in ahead of the actual comp.

[Larkin]

Really enjoy reading your reports Ben!

I used to speak to a guy at a local tackle shop that was really into that type of fishing. He would tell me about fishing for bream around the oyster racks in woolooware bay, and would enter comps like you do.

Keep writing your reports, and good luck with future comps!