September 23 was the date when 55 kayak fishers unloaded their craft from their vehicles and rigged up over looking the rising sun breaking over the headland of Mooloolaba.

The morning was mild and the anxiety of the yakkers was high as the imagery of 55 different coloured bows kissing the rising tide was breathtaking. Soon after the briefing was delivered the air horn sounded and the millpond waters of Mooloolaba were stirred with paddles and peddles creating wakes in all directions as each angler had a game plan.

Some went downstream while others went upstream, but which direction would prove more successful?

I guess you can’t have your cake and eat it too, with magical conditions on the water and the bream were up to their tricks once again testing most anglers to their capacity. As the morning progressed so did the fishing with scores of trevally and cod making their way from the turquoise depths to the side of many yaks.

Unfortunately these species were not on the catch card and the bream were outwitting many yakkers, but there were 15 anglers who worked out how to successfully tempt some legal bream.

Many tales were told at the presentation of how they were getting smoked and busted off using 4lb leader as the bream headed for pylons or the keel of boat hulls. Tying on 6lb proved futile as the bream refused to even take a close look at what was being offered so more 4lb was tied on and it was time to buckle up.

After the 1st round of the KFT Sunshine Coast Series 1 many anglers clued onto the secret weapons that bought fish to the measure board and once again in the second round hidden weight jigheads with Gulp 2” Shrimps or Atomic Prongs together with blades proved effective.

Steven Crawley managed a catch card of 5 fish with a total length of 135.6mm. Following Steven was one of the young kayak fisho’s Declan Williams. Declan found success under boat hulls and fished hidden weight jigheads with 2” Shrimps and his 4 fish came to a total of 110.8mm. Darren Borg was about 6mm behind Declan to claim third. Dizzy’s 4 fish were taken primarily on a new prototype blade called ‘ghost blade’ that is about to be released from TT Lures. His 4 fish measured 104.1mm.

Another young KFT regular Guy Struthers used similar tactics to Declan and managed 2 bream with a length of 52.7mm for fourth place, Jason Clarke claimed 5th with 2 fish

The target structure for each of the anglers who landed fish varied from the nearby marina and rock wall, down river to the fishing trawlers and upstream to mangrove lined banks and bridge pylons. With bream taken from all of these structures using a mixture of lightly weighted soft plastics, blades and hard bodies it was a lightly weighted Berkley Gulp 2” Shrimp that secured a solid fish of 34.9cm to the fork for Doug McGill. This bream handed Doug the BCF Big Bream and a $200 BCF Gift Card went his way.

Joe Hummerston who just missed out on 10th place by a mere 1mm didn’t go home in despair as he was fortunate enough to score the major lucky draw prize of the Extreme Kayaks Fish Bandit which he had planned to christen it in the Bribie Passage.

The KFT mission is to help evolve kayak anglers skills through sharing tips and tricks of winning anglers and through product reviews and articles through the KFT website, without the generous support of our sponsors the growth of competitive kayak fishing would hindered.

With over $5,000 worth of prizes each round and copious amounts random prizes some of the top ten prize packs included a Humminbird Matrix 12 pack, TT Lures pack, Atomic Lures pack, Berkley TMS pack, Gary Howard rod, Daiwa Tierra reel pack, T-18 Watersnake electric motor, Fish Culture sun protection pack, Pflueger Trion Tournament rod and Pflueger reel, Evakool Icemate and Icekool iceboxes and many other packs consisting of products kindly donated by our very good friends at Platypus, Stren, Trilene, Sea to Summit, Solution paddles, Fish Off Wipes, Fish On Films, Queensland Fishing Monthly, big bream sponsor BCF and major random prize draw a Extreme Kayaks Fish Bandit.

No matter what brand or style of kayak you fish from the friendly comradely of like-minded yak fisho’s makes for a spectacular and rewarding day to be a part of. For more information visit www.kft.net.au. – KFT