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Tweed River ABT Qualifier

nabs

By nabs
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nabs Newbie

nabs

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Tweed River ABT

Well, the week after the last Minibucks' disappointment and our huge 'choke' dropping 21 places on day 2. I was looking to redeem myself at this weekends Tweed River ABT qualifier. This comp is an individual competition and I was fishing as a non-boater, meaning I get paired up with 2 boaters, one for Day 1 and one for Day 2.

Daniel was also fishing this comp as a non boater and I stayed at his place. The weekend didn't get off to a great start with a family emergency making us spend a fair few hours in the Emergency Room at the Hospital. We did duck off to the briefing for the comp and met our boaters and rushed back to the hospital. Everything was good, 'false alarm.' We got back to his place and rigged up for the next day. My boater for Saturday was Martin Richardson and Day 2 was a mate of mine, Darryn Love.

I wasn't exactly sure where we were heading on Saturday and it seemed my boater wasn't sure either. Head left and go fish the mouth, or go right and go up river. We were off lucky 13th, so you can understand why I wasn't so confident going to fish on Saturday.

The general theme going around was that the fishing was tough, with many struggling to get a bag of fish on prefish day. Of course, adding to my already lowered confidence!

Day 1 and we were at the start of location waiting for our boaters. I was fishing out of a Triton boat with a 115 ETEC on the back. So it was going to be a very cold ride! Lucky I brought my balaclava! I met up with my boater for the day and had a chat while waiting for the 7am start. He was still unsure whether to head upriver or to fish the mouth. I was hoping we would fish the mouth as this was the scene of last years 'fish fest.' Plus I bought a HEAP of heavy jigheads, so I was ready to fish the deep water. It's not the most fun way to fish, but when the fish are on, you can get a heap. That's what last year was like anyway and is usually the case in winter. So I'm sure you also understand that when we headed up river, my confidence was a little more down.

We went up the Terranora arm of the Tweed and straight to the Racks. Reaching speeds of 54mph, it was a cold ride! We started fishing some broken and sunken racks for not much result. I got 1 hit and a small flatty. Once we fished all of those racks, we moved to the bank and worked our way to the next set. These racks were in more clear water and with the rain recently, it would make sense that they would be in this clear water. We were now targeting the floating racks, basically just PVC pipes. Since they were floating, you could fish fairly light line as there was no real structure for them to bust you off on. I was fishing 3lb leader and throwing 2inch Shrimps and a Shallow Jackall Chubby.

My boater was first to hook up with a fish around 28cm hitting the deck. My confidence starting to raise a little, at least there's signs of life!

It wasn't long before I had my first fish in, also going 28cm to the fork, caught just twitching a Chubby out from the Racks. I managed another going 25cm on the same lure and my boater got one more around the same size. It was certainly tough with a lot of time between hits. We finished this set of racks and moved down river a bit to wait for the incoming tide.

Stopping at one of the bridges we were drifting through the eddies and found some interesting shows on the Side imaging sounder, resembling old bridge pylons. After spending a while throwing everything, we couldn't get a touch.

By now, the tide had slowed up and we headed back up river. We fished a rock wall to kill a bit more time, waiting for the tide to pick up. We were getting a few more hits now as the tide was starting to run in. We both landed a couple of small fish on plastics and worked our way back up towards the racks. Except this time some different ones.

These racks were again PVC pipes but this time, were fixed in the ground with vertical poles so it was a bit more rough terrain. The battery for the electric motor was running low so we sat against the racks and casted up between the rows. First cast I got hit and hooked a 24cm bream. That made it 3 in the well. Next cast with the same lure, 1/12 jighead and 2inch Pepper Prawn Gulp Shrimp. I managed another one going 23cm, nothing big, but it proved very valuable. Again, next cast I got smashed and dropped the fish. Boy they go hard in the racks! Brought the lure back and fired out another cast in the same spot and bang! Better fish! This fish ran up to all the posts and I managed to turn it every time before it spat the hook a few meters from the boat! That was heart breaking. The fish went quiet now and soon enough it was time to head back to weigh in my 4 fish.

Getting back to the weigh in, it seemed as though everyone struggled. My 4 fish went 1.41kg and put me in 6th place going into day 2.

Day 2, after last weeks Minibucks huge 'choke' I was a tad nervous going to fish today. I was fishing with a mate of mine today, Darryn Love, out of his 4.2m Tinny. Darryn didn't manage any legals on Day 1 so things were not looking so great. We decided to hit a few spots that I knew first up. We were off number 42 and headed straight to our spot and luckily no one else was fishing there. Things started off quite slowly with only a few small fish coming aboard. We moved to fish one of the bridges and missed a few fish, although they didn't seem to be very big. We weren't really sure where to head so decided to go fish the trawlers and canals for the last of the run out tide. On arrival to the trawlers we spoke to a few other guys fishing around and it seemed that everyone was struggling. The fish were a lot shyer today, which is what usually happens in these comps. When you have 59 boats flogging a river, of course the fish will become a bit lure shy on the second day!

We headed up to the trawlers for no result and then into the canals for again, nothing! I think I got one hit but that was it. Darryn had caught a heap of small fish yesterday, fishing in the Blue Hole. It's a deep hole in a small bay off the main river. I think gets to about 40ft deep. We went there and fished the banks near the hole and were quickly getting some small fish. I was fishing 2lb FC straight through and finally managed to get 1 legal fish going 27cm to the fork. The tide then slowed right up and things went very quiet so we made a quick dash to fish around the mouth before it started running too hard. On arrival, there were a few boats fishing and every now and then someone would get a fish. We struggled for a few missed fish and then once the tide picked up we headed straight back to the blue hole where we were before. Again, we were into the small fish but it seemed that those legal fish were just not playing the game. Thinking that we would eventually sort through them and find some legals, we stayed. After a few missed hits from fish, I tied on a stinger hook and straight away, as the lure hit the bottom I was on to my 2nd legal. Only just but still legal at 23cm. Next cast, same story and in came another going 24cm. Things then went quiet and that was it for the day and we headed back. I was thinking I would hopefully not drop too far down with just the 3 fish.

I weighed in my 3 fish and they ended up going just under 1kg. Now the anxious wait to see where I finished. 7th place! I was stoked. My 2nd top 10 finish in an ABT Qualifier. To finish 7th out of 57 I thought was a great achievement so I was very happy!

Come the presentation time, I won a new rod and some other goodies. Most importantly, the 7th place patch!

It was a great weekend for me; I had 2 great boaters and enjoyed the fishing even though it was so tough. I think I missed out on qualifying for the Grand Final at the Gold Coast by 2 places, which is what happened at Tassy as well! Ah well, maybe next time.

Sorry guys, no pics this time. It really just slipped my mind.

Cheers

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pinkey Newbie

pinkey

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Great report nabs, You did very well, congrats.

ill just make a tiny report of how i went.

Day 1, i got pared with Rob Kwiatkowski who owns a skeeter:woohoo: . Straight up we headed to this rockwall not far upriver from the starting point, and found a good spot at the point of that rockwall that dropped off fairly deep, I was using 1/8 and 3inch powerminnows in pearl blue and was the first to score a fish! a 24.5cmfl bream. We got into a patch of fish and i was thinking how easy is this when the next bream hit the well at 23.5cm.. We left that spot with me having 2 fish in my well and him 4 and lots of throwbacks.. Then went to keneedy drive where i scored my only other leagal fish for the comp! lol :blink: a 27.5fl on a 1.5" atomic craw. The weigh in on the first day saw me with a 1.11kg bag and 11th place. The next day i was pared with Chris Britton.. who also owns a skeeter!:woohoo: Was a verrrry slow and tough day but still great fun. We seemed to fish the wrong spots at the wrong times.. With him landing the only legal fish at about 30cmfl about (550grams) at keneedy drive. I only caught a small flatty and a 20cmfl bream that day. But still learnt so much and had so much fun on the water. Ended up coming 20th which i was still very happy about. And scored alot of free atomic guzzlers which havnt been released in qld yet ;). Can't fish the GC, but i will be fishing many more comps in the future!

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