MyFish 28-7-09 (Dash For Cash)

28-7-09

After a long break in the tournament calendar, last weekend we had the eagerly awaited Dash for Cash comp held at the Gold Coast. With 42 teams competing in great breaming conditions it was interesting to see how the day was going to unfold. With a couple of prefishes under our belt, young Tom Slater and I weighed up the options and decided to stay at the coast and fish the deep reef of TSS thinking the fish were staying deep during the spawning season. Arriving at our first stop we sat in about 15-17ft of water fishing 2” Gulp shrimp in Peppered Prawn and Banana Prawn colours on 1/12th and 1/8th TT jigheads working them with slow twitches along the bottom during the rising tide. With no luck there, we decided to hit the adjacent pontoons where Tom nailed an awesome 33cm fork bream while working his 2” Gulp shrimp off the front of the structure and not only did this bream have good length it also was really fat which gave us hope that it may get close to a big bream place as it had good weight. So in having a good start to the morning the confidence was high as we continued to hit the pontoons in search for more bream. The next hour and a half we continued to catch fish but the lack of size was our concern. We then decided to tackle some flats in the hope that fish had decided to feed on the flooding tide and after drifting and casting for 40-50mins our confidence was taking a hammering but we still had time to fill our bag. On our way back from the flats we stopped in to investigate the big red barge near the seaway that we had heard held fish. Second cast there and Tommy was on to a nice 26cm bream caught on a 2” Gulp shrimp in Banana prawn which raised our confidence levels again. After peppering that area we returned to TSS in hope the fish were going to turn on for the final two and a half hours for us to fill our bag. So to cut a long story short, TSS showed us no love!! And we ended the day with only two fish.
Well that’s competition for you. I don’t know about Tom but I learnt heaps of things on the weekend but along the way still had fun. The biggest thing I learnt for next time is to follow my instincts and not to play safe. My instinct was to go to the bay (like the winners did) as my previous months’ sessions up there were all successful but what scared me was the long run up there. I think fishing conservatively was the wrong option as I had once heard Dizzy Borg say that he fishes bad when he’s not aggressive, point taken. I don’t like to not make excuses for bad days but to learn from them as that’s what makes you a better tournament angler in the long run. A big congratulations goes to Team Samurai Reaction of Steve Eldred and Simon Vaughn as they had the comp of their lives with a huge bag of 4.585kg and took out all three prizes of big bream for the weekend with all of them coming from their winning bag!! Steve’s 1.180kg specimen made our 33cm look like a guppy!! Better luck next time Tom. Also thanks to Tom Slater for making the day enjoyable as I needed someone to laugh at for 7 hours!!
Happy Breaming, Grayson.