Bream Classic CHAMPS - Congratulations Ruski and Alex

Onthedrop86 · #1 08-11-2013, 05:50 AM

Hey guys,

As some of you might know the Bream Classic Championship was held at Mallacoota on the 5th and 6th of November, a big congratulations to Paul and Alex for taking out the win with two cracking bags each day, 4.58kg and 4.78kg from memory.

I myself struggled down there, catching only 4 fish for 1.78kg on the first day and 5 fish for 2.71kg on the second day and it goes without saying that those sort of bags don't get you far on a place like Mallacoota!

On the first day it was really glassed out, which was a complete change of weather to the day before where it was blowing 30 knots and scattered showers. On the prefish day we found fish by targeting the back of the bays with the wind pushing onto them and while this worked then it was completely different conditions on comp day and put simply, we struggled finding them. The second day we tried a completely different plan and that was to hit some rocky points early and then if we were struggling to head out deep. Our first fish came 3rd cast in but after that we struggled in finding them so we decided to head out and fish some deep water flats. When we arrived the sounder went nuts with bait which got our spirits up and first cast I hooked up to a fish which was a great sign. On our first drift we got our 5 with 1 upgrade and on the second drift we secured three more small upgrades. We decided at 9am to grind it out deep ALLL day hoping for some bigger fish but it just wasn't happening. The fish on the edges were mainly caught on Daiwa Presso's, Gulp Camo Craws and OSP Dunks, while all fish on day 2 fell to 3" Gulp minnow grubs in Camo on a 1/12th Nitro jighead in the deep.

It certainly is a beautiful place and a place that I will definitely be coming back to!

Jules01 · #2 08-11-2013, 05:53 AM

Sensational effort congrats guys!!

Piscateur · #3 08-11-2013, 06:31 AM

Awesome stuff fellas, no two nicer blokes and better ambassadors of our sport.

Alex · #4 08-11-2013, 08:09 AM

Thanks guys for your kind words, very much appreciated.

To say we are over the moon is definitely an understatement. We wanted this win for so long and wanted it bad. To come up on the top of such a quality field is a dream come true.

We had a pretty good pre-fish, found a few on the edges, and deep. After catching a fish or two we moved on leaving them for comp days.

Tuesday comes-totally different story. The fish are spooky and not willing to take lures the same way they were biting on Monday. We needed a more finesse approach to make them bite.
Went to our usual spots, picked up a few, dropped a couple. By 10 am we had our bag. nothing big, but all solid fish. The smallest was 32 ttf. Tried to upgrade, caught a few but all the same size 32 ttf

At about 1 pm Paul hooked a really good yellowfin which took us by surprise. The reel was screaming and the runs were long and powerfull. After about 10 minutes I netted it and it was a beauty. I estimated that yella was about 1.2-1.3 kg. Happy days.
We were very surprised after weighing in to realise that we got to the top spot. I was expecting to be in top ten but def. not to be first.

The second day was definitely tuffer. We had our chances again dropping a few good ones and finally hooked a few solid keepers. Then it went really quite. The sun was up and the temperature went to the mid twenties with no wind. The fish weren't cooperative at all.
We had to make very long casts trying to not to spook the fish but when you fishing Atomic 2" grubs, the long cast is a very relative term.

However one cast into the dark spot on the sandy bank eventuated something we never seen before! The "spot" started to move towards the landed grub. To our amusement and excitment it happen to be a real Mallacoota stonker! A blackie at 1.56kg (I think from memory)

Took us a while to land him and we knew this fish would help us at the weigh in for sure!

At 12:30 we only had 4 fish and decided to move to a deeper water. Our spot from the pre-fish day didn't produce any hits and after 20 minutes we moved the spot. Pressure started mounting as we still had to find the 5-th fish.
Moved to the bank nearby where I caught a kilo fish on Monday but nothing. Moved back again to the deep and Paul finally hooked a solid keeper.

We had our only upgrade for the day on the last cast

and with 5 minutes to go we knew we did our best under such a tuff conditions.

We weighed in quick and with the bigger bag on day two were confident that we had a chance. The wait for other teams to weigh in was really nerve breaking but fortunately for us it was a done deal.

We bettered the second placed team by 1.29kg which was a great margin overall considering how close we were within top ten (70-200g after day one).
Thanks again for all the well wishes and for reading it all.

Some details on the comp and videos are here

http://bream.com.au/index.php

Cheers,
Alex

jpcqw · #5 08-11-2013, 09:13 AM

u won a motor?

TheChief · #6 08-11-2013, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpcqw

u won a motor?

nah just the cardboard cut out....

Well done guys on the win!

redfinfisho · #7 08-11-2013, 10:03 AM

awesome right up ontherdrop and Alex felt like I was there reading it

echo1 · #8 08-11-2013, 12:29 PM

Fuarrr have a look at that blackie! Awesome fish and congrats on the win!

crabcrusher · #9 08-11-2013, 04:30 PM

Well done guys.. The amount of effort you guys put in, i phenomenal, so a much deserved win.

Enjoy the moment!!!

All you need now is a cardboard boat for the motor, and your set

bonscottfan · #10 08-11-2013, 05:38 PM

Great win fellas and to win by that margin proves your plan paid off,congrats to all the other place getters some real quality fish there boys well done
Paul

spawn_again · #11 09-11-2013, 12:00 AM

Congrats alex and paul, that was a great 2 day bag fir a very comprehensive win! Well done Todd, it's never easy those from up north to do well at coota. The fishing was definately tougher than the ABT event in Feb. We found the better sized fish on edges but couldn't fill the bag both days. We saw all the boats out in the deep mud but decided to take the risk finding bigger ones in the snags. Still happy with 31st place with a 5.58kg 8/10 bag and looking forward to getting back down there.