Throughout the 2011 season, 30 teams qualified for the NSW BASSIN GRAND FINAL. They competed over six rounds to have a crack at the $10,000 prize money up for grabs in the final. The weather forcast looked good for the two days as everyone gathered for the briefing and key tag draw to sort out the starting order for the first morning.There was excitement in the air as most people were keeping their cards close to their chest.
There had been a two week prefish ban which meant anyone in the tournament could not go on the dam prior. Friday was a prefish day where we were allowed to get out on the water for a look around. This is to assist those who had been practicing before the ban to see if fish were still in the areas they had located them, and for those who hadn’t to try and locate some. Toby and I had put in a little effort before the ban and thought the bigger fish needed to win would come on top-water. We had the benefit of having two boats so we split up to cover more area in the early morning which is when the surface bite is at its best.
We both were throwing poppers; Toby a 70mm Rapala Skitter Pop in the new Orange Frog colour, and myself a 70mm X-Rap Pop in the Clown colour. We both removed the hooks as to not sting the fish but just see what was in the area.
At 5.45am Toby and I both headed off to the pre chosen areas to see if we could raise any interest. At 6.30am we met up to compare what had happened. I could see by the look on Toby’s face that it wasn’t just me that had had some action; I had 11 different fish up and some were coming back two-three times on the one retrieve. It can be difficult to tell the size as even the small fish can make quite a large explosion, but two fish from the one set of trees were clearly in the 1-1.5kg bracket. Toby had also had 9 different fish have a go at his hook-less Skitter Pop and we decided that we should go in and have some breakfast as the morning plan was set.
After some breakfast and a few hours rest we shot back out in the one boat to come up with an afternoon pattern.It didnt take to long and we put a few scorers in the boat on spinner baits and the 50mm Rapala Rippin’ Raps in the Gold Chrome colour. Both of us thought that it be best not to catch too many from our area and called it a day. Having not stung to many fish from our chosen location, we were very confident that we were a big chance at the $10,000 cash prize.
Our team drew number 6 which meant we were the 6th boat away in the morning which got us to our spot nice and early. After 10mins we had not even had a looker on the poppers but fished on confident it would happen. After two missed opportunities and one bust off, the surface bite had stopped; not that it really started for us – so we moved a little wider from the edge and continued to fish a combination of spinner bait and 50mm Rapala Rippin’ Raps to compile a small bag of four just legal bass (30cm to the fork). We weighed a conservative 2.03kg which put us in 22nd position; a hard to swallow spot when the leaders had hit them on topwater as predicted and weighed in at 4.5kg.
Heading out in the afternoon session , Toby and I knew it would be a lot tougher and a chance for us to climb the leader board. That’s exactly what went down and our team weighed in a 2.51kg bag on the spinner baits and Rippin’ Raps to climb into 13th spot over night. Our goal was to go out and catch another bag on Sunday and hopefully get into the top ten.
Sunday morning and again we only had two surface bites and didn’t land either of them… so back to what we had done the day before. We landed around 15-20 legal fish and wieghed a nice bag of 3.16kg to put us into 9th position overall. It was dissapointing to have been out of the running after the first session but also quite satisfying to have improved as the weekend went on and climb into a top ten finish after a bad start.
Nearly every fish over a kilo for the weekend was caught on the top water, a definate big fish technique.
A great weekend with great company was had and we will be back next year for sure. They are a great tournament to get involved in and cater for the serious and the social angler alike.
ABT/AFC ANGLER
Gregg Flett.
