Joseph Urquhart has taken the victory at the third round of the 2017 ePropulsion Bass Electric series at Hinze Dam with 2/2 fish for 2.18kg with Bass Electric regular Christian Manolea hot on his heels in second place with 2/2 fish for 2kg.

With a large field assembled for the tournament, Urquhart opted to take the long drive up the Eastern Arm in search of less pressured fish with his focus on the bigger bass holding in the shallow banks near the water pumping tower. “With most anglers heading towards the main basin, I took the risk,” explained Urquhart. With a 45 minute drive ahead of him, Urquhart knew his decision was going to be bust or boom.

Once in location Urquhart started targeting these shallow fish with a Valley Hill Ja-Do LV150. Urquhart would make short casts to the edge before starting a high tempo rolling retrieve back to the boat.

“I wouldn’t have said I was burning the lure back to the boat. I would have called it a fast roll; the idea was to keep the lure in the top 2ft of the water column and the bass would see the lure passing overhead,” said Urquhart. For this to work Urquhart used a Daiwa Commander Wildcat matched with a Daiwa Zillion HLC spooled with 10lb Sea Bass braid and 10lb Toray Upgrade leader.

With two quality fish in his livewell early, Urquhart decided to switch up lures opting for Geecrack Orenta 50 rigged on a beetle spin. He would again cast tight to cover before imparting an up tempo roll back to the boat. With the lighter lure Urquhart used a Valley Hill Blackscale 6’2 light spin matched with a Daiwa Gen Black 2000 spooled with 10lb Toray Seabass and 8lb Toray Upgrade leader. “I found that the better quality fish were holding on the edge leading to the point and not the point itself,” said Urquhart.

With the victory under his belt Urquhart was quick to thank his support team, “It is always great to come away with a win, but it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my family and the team at Dogtooth Distribution that supplied me with all the products I used today.”

Another strong show on the ABT Bass Electric tour came from Christian Manolea. On a day with lots of small fish he was the only other angler to reach the 2kg mark with his tournament limit. Like most of the field, Manolea started his tournament targeting schooled fish in the main basin.

“I was getting numbers of small fish out of the schools, but I just could not get any keepers in the boat,” said Manolea.

With the bigger fish not showing up, Manolea knew he needed to make a move in search of better fish. Having confidence that the fish wouldn’t be too far away, he moved to target fish holding on the points leading into the main basin. Manoela would position his boat in 30ft of water and cast up into the shallows and then allow his 53mm Impact Tackle Bladez in brown dog colour to work down the drop-off.

For this work Manolea used a MegaBass Destroyer X7 matched with a Daiwa Steez spooled with a 10lb Sunline Castaway and 10lb Rockfish leader. “I knew the better fish would still be in the area. Once I moved they started to show up in quick succession. I caught all my good fish in a half an hour period,” explained Manolea.

Charles West has had another standout tournament taking his second big bass in as many tournaments with a 1.86kg Hinze Dam monster and in the process took 4th place. West’s fish came off the edge near the old quarry.

“It was the first cast of the day. I cast my GeeCrack Daisy Spin (003 colour) tight to the edge and started to slow roll the lure off the edge,” said West.

To land this fish West used a 13 Fishing Fate Chrome ML matched with a Daiwa Steez 2508 spooled with 12lb Sunline Castaway and 12lb Gamma FC.

For all the details on the next event or another event near you, head to www.abt.org.au. – ABT

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