The weekend of May 2-3 saw the second biggest field in Vic Bream Classic history make its way to the majestic Glenelg River at Nelson for the Eco-Gear Glenelg Shire Bream Classic.

The massive field of 66 teams where faced with some of the highest water levels the Glenelg River had ever dished up and everyone’s fingers were crossed that the mouth would stay closed to keep the fishing as consistent as possible. For a relatively new Team Pelagic Extreme Wayne Sleep and Gary Tebb from Port Campbell it was to be a weekend they will never forget as they managed to lead an impressive field of some highly decorated anglers for the entire weekend to take victory.

On the first day of competition anglers were greeted with a cold and still morning making fishing about as comfortable as you could possibly expect at this time of year. With 66 boats waiting for the 7am start nerves were high as strategies were going to be all important in determining the outcome. The bream were spread right throughout the system, but the key was to find the larger concentrations of fish that reached the new minimum size limit of 28cm fork length. For Team Pelagic Tackle Extreme’s Wayne Sleep and Gary Tebb they didn’t have to travel fair before setting about filling their live well. “On the prefish day we didn’t get many fish, but when using our sounder we could see that there were large schools of bream sitting deep in the middle of the river on either side of the highway bridge so we knew if we persevered on the fish we could get a bag of bream” Wayne said. The boys fished slow and deep over the fish using a combination of Pelagic Custom rods, Hemmingway and Shimano Fireblood reels, filled with Varivus PE Braid and 5lb Asso fluorocarbon leaders. The lure tied to the end of this combination that absolutely dominated the entire weekend for the boys was a Lucky Craft Bevy Vibe in the gold colour. It wasn’t an easy task for the boys to get the quality fish, as they had to continually pick through the hundreds of undersize bream that were sitting in the large schools all day. “ When we came into weigh our bag in we thought we may have had enough to be in the top ten after day 1, but couldn’t believe it when we were in the lead” Wayne said. With their bag pulling the scales down to 5/5 bream for 3.18kg they had taken a narrow lead over Team Humminbird’s Shaun Clancy and Wayne Friebe who managed to land 5/5 for 3.04kg fishing a completely different technique higher up river where they fished Eco-Gear pink grubs along the edges.

Day 2 delivered quite different conditions with low cloud and persistent drizzle falling for most of the morning. With the Vic Bream TV camera on board, Team Pelagic Extreme had to put the nerves aside and work on finding those quality fish, as with less than 300gm separating the top ten the boys knew if they failed to boat another quality bag they would find themselves being swallowed by the rest of the field. The other challenge Team Pelagic Extreme had to deal with was that after hearing about their day 1 success most of the field were now fishing with them on the same 400 metre stretch of schooling bream. Even with the added pressure Wayne and Gary rose to the occasion and whether it was luck, pure skill or their trusty Lucky Craft Bevy Vibe the boys had five legal bream in no time and set about upgrading for the remainder of the day. As they headed to the weigh in, a dream victory was starting to feel much more possible and when their bag hit the scales for 5/5 bream for 2.94kg giving them a total weight of 10/10 bream for 6.12kg the boys were home, and 2009 Eco-Gear Glenelg Shire Bream Classic Champions. The Berkley Best Bag prize went to Team Ray & Anne’s Tackle & Marine’s David Gray and Rob Dowd who made an impressive charge for the lead on Day 2 with a huge 5/5 bream bag for 3.80kg moving them from 29th to take out 2nd position. The thumping 1.74kg Eco-Gear Big Bream was one for the ladies as it was taken out by Team What Ever’s Gillian Knight who showed the boys how to catch those big bruising bream.

After 3 Rounds of the 2009 Humminbird Vic Bream Classic Series Team Rippin Lip’s Warren Carter and Craig Seignior have taken a commanding 46 point lead in the 2009 Club Marine Team of the Year points table. With most of the current Team of the Year top ten fishing the next round which is the Mako Craft East Gippsland Bream Classic at Mallacoota on June 13 and 14 its building to be a fiercely competitive round as they try to reel in Team Rippin Lips. For more information on the remaining rounds visit www.vicbreamclassics.com.au or call Bill Hartshorne on 0409 823 070.