The weekend of 20-21 March saw 59 teams head to the small township of Nelson to tackle the Eco-Gear Glenelg Shire Bream Classic.

In the weeks leading up to the pre-fish ban, hopes were high for anglers with excellent fishing being experienced by all that hit the water.

But on the official pre-fish day before the tournament hope had turned to frustration with the fish suddenly being shut down and hard to temp with a lure. The only consolation for many teams was the good numbers of mulloway willing to hit their lures and give them a great thrill on light tackle.

It was going to take something special for a team to land 10 legal fish during the tournament. For Dean Truman and Shane Hill from Team Whitehead Timber Sales that something special was in the form of their trusty little tinnie that enabled them to get where no other boat could and subsequently take out the victory.

With the previous days pre-fish bringing poor fishing for most teams, day one saw many teams with no real plan other than to try numerous spots and lures to get fish. With so much boat movement up and down the river the fishing became even tougher.

The team that could find a quiet spot away from the crowds would have the advantage and this is exactly what Team Whitehead Timber Sales did. Getting some great advice from fellow competitor Nick Glenn about a channel near the mouth that was holding good numbers of legal fish, but needing a small boat to access due to the shallow sand bar, the boys headed for a look on the pre-fish and were surprised to see some great fish holding in the channel.

Knowing that not too many other boats in the field could get to the spot the boys decided that fishing this spot would be their weekend plan.

“We headed straight to this spot on day one and nestled the boat hard up against the bank and waited for the fish to come to us rather than move around and spook them,” Dean said. Using a combination of Samurai and Shimano T-Curve rods matched to 2000 sized Daiwa Luvias reels, spooled with 4lb Berkley Crystal Fireline and Daiwa 4lb Gekkabijin leader material, the boys cast Jackall Chubbies in the suji shrimp colour along with Eco-Gear SX40s in colour 307 across the entire width of the channel and then slowly worked them back to the boat.

“The fish were hitting the lures very close to the boat. We managed to get three fish early from here and then were lucky enough to land another two legal fish from fishing the shacks near the Isle Of Bags with only half an hour to go,” Dean said.

As they headed to the weigh in they were surprised to see that they were one of only two teams to get five fish on day one. With the weekends Berkley Best Bag of five bream weighing in at 2.82kg Team Whitehead Timber Sales were out in front.

Day two saw the boys head to the same spot with even better results than the previous day.

“Again sitting quietly 200m from the mouth of the river waiting for the fish to come to us and intercepting them with our lures we managed to land a full bag of five legal bream by 9.20am,” Dean said.

After around 9.30am the fish shut down and with a full bag the boys decided to search for some upgrade fish. With only one other fish being boated but not legal the boys from Whitehead Timber Sales felt they had done enough to get over the line.

As they approached the scales with the only five bag for day two it was clear the boys and their trusty little boat had blown away the competition.

With 10/10 bream for 5.82kg they had streaked to victory by almost 2kg, just showing that you don’t need to spend huge money on a boat motor package to be competitive in the Humminbird Bream Classics Series.

Probably the closest battle over the weekend was for the Eco-Gear Big Bream Prize with three Teams tied for the prize with very modest bream weighing only 800g a piece. With only a few teams left to weigh in on day two, Jarrod Healey from Team Gulp Alive managed to take the Eco-Gear Big Bream Victory with the smallest big bream ever to take out the prize in Humminbird Bream Classic history.

Jarrod’s bream of 880g wasn’t huge but in the tough conditions was a great capture to take out the swag of Eco-Gear lures.

Next stop will see the 2010 Humminbird Bream Classic Series head to Mallacoota for the Berkley East Gippsland Bream Classic. This is by far one of the premier venues on the circuit and a place where bream in excess of 1.5kg are common.

For all the info or to grab an entry form visit www.vicbreamclassics.com.au or call Bill Hartshorne on 0409 823 070.