Flathead Classic Team Hinterland Marine

[Why-ting]

Hey guys. Well the flathead classic is over for another year. Fished it with my 2 brothers Dave and Brenden. This was our 5th classic fishing together and had high expectations with us having some good prefishes and not finished outside the top 20, we were looking for a top 10 finish this year

1st day.

Was pretty hard fishing on the first day. We didnt follow the crowds and payed the price by only having 4 fish by 3 o'clock. Heads were down and we headed to our go to spot for the last hour and boated 7 fish. Ended up with 11 for the day. I think we were about 60 something on the board which was a bit of a change from last year with 27 fish for the first day and sitting 6th :-[

2nd day.

Another hard day on the water with the northerlies getting up and turning the water to shit. It was pretty choppy down past Walleys gutter with tide against wind but the Pro Strike made a meal of the conditions sitting up on top of the 2ft chop and doing about 50mph and still a pretty compfy ride. ended up with 10 fish for the day and moved up to about 45th.

3rd day.

Was soooo hard getting out of bed with not many fish boated on the fist couple of days.Fishing is only 6.30-12 and we did better than the first 2 days with 7 fish. We had a good half hour before the tide changed along Curuso Is which saw us boat 4 quick fish. The 20Kt southerlies made fishing difficult.

We ended up finishing 34th overall which was a bit disappointing but none the less had a good couple of days on the water with my brothers. A few laughs and a few fights but even though we didnt do as good as expected, it was better than being at work for the last 3 days.

Lures that worked for us were: Gulp 3in poggy white, sardine and pumpkinseed. Gulp 5in jerk shad pink/white, nuclear chicken, lime tiger and black catapla. Also some of the clear shads in Bozos and Squidgies. Most of the time gulps were used as you can just drop your jig back if you miss or drop a fish and they will have another go where they dont on other lures.

By catch.

I was the bycatch king with 2 cod, sting rays, a turtle, flounder, star gazer( ugliest fish ive ever seen.) Other things that made it to the boat were a fishing rod, Big sticks, a small Moari cod.

I met a few good fellas at the comp. Franco, Toppy, and Lynchie. Phil, Dave and numerous other people that i had a drink with.

Franco hope you can get your your rods back that had a fight with your garage door.
Phil hope you got your $1000+ outfit back from the bottom of the Sea way.

Thanks to the Gold coast sports fishing club for another great couple of days and we will be back next year for sure.

Cheers Nick

Small cod and my Brother dave thinkin hes funny

[Why-ting]

This thing is an absolute weapon. Sooo Quick, Sooo smooth and handles awesome.

[Why-ting]

ugly star gazer

[Why-ting]

front on

[Why-ting]

Oh yeah we did catch some flathed too

[blue-mako]

What was the top Flattie of the trip? Stargazers have a face not even a mother could love. Apparently they taste great though. I couldn't bring myself to eating one since they are so ugly.

Troy

[bidkev]

Hey Nick! I recognise that rig.......a mean machine. I saw you having a practice run last weekend by the Jew Hole at crusoe. That was me walking along the bank with the cast net just up from our campsite. Not a bait fish to be seen all weekend......not there, anyway.

2 of you chucking placcies and someone sun baking on the deck if I'm not mistaken ;D

I was taking note of those big placcies you were chucking so accurately. Just getting into 'em myself but the only time I seem to catch around there is when I just put the rod in the holder and drift.

Thanks for the report.

kev

The best way to keep your kids out of hot water is to put some dishes in it.

[bdowdy]

:)gday nick there great shots, it was a great classic wasnt it, i had a ball i was in team 2 dogs and came in at 29th we caught the goanna . that was an awesome boat you fellas had very nice indeed, hope to catch up next year. cheers bdowdy ;) brett

[gregdeeth]

great report, ugly fish and nice boats. sounds like a good couple a days to be out and about

[nabs12]

Hey
Too bad about not getting the top 10 finish.. theres always next year ;D
Those pro-strikes are awesome boats.. I was lucky to fish off one in the gold coast ABT.

Cheers

[Why-ting]

blue mako. We got 2 fish of 65cm. We seem to have a classic hoodoo. Never seem to get any big fish during the classic.

Kingtin. I remember seing you walking the bank last weekend. My younger brother was sunbaking that day as i woke him up at five to leave for the coast and he only got to bed at 4.30. Young and dumb. I wish that day was during the classic we nearly got more points in that day than we did for the classic.

bdowdy. You blokes were really keen bringing that thing in the boat. I reckon you should have got the rod for metre long lizard. It was 1.2m long wasnt it. Should post up that photo.

Also durring the classic Daryl from Blue Fin boats scored a 98cm flattie trolling a little Macs lures Mac mauler. I saw the photos of this fish and it absolutly blew my mind. The fish laying flat on the floor was about 100mm thick. A monster of a fish. Jamie or anyone from the club who reads this and has access to the photo, it would be good if you could start a post to show the size of this fish and prove how the slot size limits are working. This was the biggest flattie caught in the 13 years of the flattie classic.

Cheers Whytey

[ele-phrez]

great looking boat

[snapperm8]

now that boat looks to be a quick rig ;D

[RobSee]

This was my 5th Flattie classic. I did not get nmuch of a pre fish in, what with getting a new job down on the coast, and buying a house as well. Too much stuff to do. My mate Dave fished his first classic this time with me. His goal was to catch his biggest ever flattie, and mine was to make the top 20.

Our second spot produced the goods. I cast an 8 inch Bozo lumo grub under some snags at Kalinga Bank and the next thing I know I'm doubled over fighting a 72cm croc

[RobSee]

Dave thought that this was pretty good so he started fishing with a Bozo in the chartruese colour. Second cast he had achieved his first goal.

80 cm fat momma

Observe

[RobSee]

top view

[RobSee]

we then tried a few more spots that I had success in over the last few years, and they all produced fish!

[RobSee]

at the end of the day, I had caught 9 fish, 4 over 70, and only one of them was less than 40cm. Dave caught only 3, two of them measured 75 and 80.

I finished day one on top of the leader board, while Dave with his 3 fish was coming 26th. The team was placing 7th.

[RobSee]

It could only go down hill from there.

Second day I caught 2 rats while Dave caught a couple of photo worthy fish (>40cm) but nothing special. I was beginning to doubt all of my methods and ability. I was fairly brainf**ked by then!

As a team we slipped to 12th, while Dave was down to 36th, I was at 12th.

[RobSee]

Third day had started anew, and I was optimistic. I had had a word with Greenie the night before, and I knew it was pretty tough for all anglers. The forcast did not look flash, but my deckie was keen to do the pin again. i knew it was going to be a wet trip back, but he did not seem to care, so we gave it a crack.

I got 3 rats, and Dave only managed the one. Pi$$ poor effort that. Should have stayed at the ramp and fished there instead for that result - could have saved the fuel!

The wash up was that I came 16th, and thus got my best ever finish, and made the top 20 (my goal) Dave got his big fish and came 45th I think, and the Dusky Dominators came 13th.

At least I'll always have Magic Thursday!!!!

[White_Steenbras]

Nice read and even better results, top pics cheers

[Adamy]

Hi Nick,

Saw you fishing along Caruso - remember you were flicking around the boats of some guys camping on Caruso, where you pulled the 4 quick ones - I was guessing the one you pulled just to your left of us was about 65cm - plus one of your crew (in the Blue shirt) lost what looked like a solid fish. Anyway - that was us - my boat was the cream one with the blue bimini and the Ausfish sticker (I was in either black hooded sweat top or grey T tank top).

Guys at the camp site were pretty impressed with the rig and the finesse with which you guys fished - at the rate we saw you catch em - we thought for sure your catch rate was going to be higher - although the size wasnt really anything the write home about.

I was just try to get close enough to recognise the type of placcies you were using - I bounced gulps in shrimp, minnow grubs, and yabbie profiles for nothing over 40cms.

Well done and thanks for the report.

Adam

[Smailesy]

great report guys nice boat

[bdowdy]

;)good report robsee , i see you had scales on your grips what did that 80 weigh, i got one at 78 and was interrested in knowing how much a fish like those weighed, talking to david green and he thought about the 8lb mark. pm me if you wish, cheers bdowdy

[Creek_Vermin]

Was definitely a lot of big fish around this year. We fished as team Bush n Beach and fished a lot of big lures in deep water. The first day saw us only catch 11 fish but they were all good and included a 90cm tank by dougy and finished with around 1400 points. I lost at least half a dozen through pulling hooks that were all in the 70 and 80cm range but ya cant land em all. I think we were in 6th place at the end of the day. Day 2 was a shocker and we finally found a few lure wrecking rats. Thankfully we got a couple of big fish early with the biggest going 83cm. Once again the weather was good but we only got 700 odd points from 24 fish. We were shocked to have actually jumped a spot and were now sitting 5th. Must have been tough for everyone. Day 3 was a tough call so we thought that one 80cm fish was better than a dozen rats so we hit the pin again. A slow start in crap weather had things looking ordinary but when the first fish to come aboard measured 77cm enthusiasm was boosted. For the next 2 hours we landed another 10 fish all over 59cm which included another 77cm to chris and plenty of mid 60's for everyone. The wind was making it toughn and we had the electric in auto pilot on full speed just to hold the drift. After 2 hours the tide turned, the wind picked up and the electric died in the arse. It forced us to fish calm water out of the wind which produced a handful of rats each. Finished the day with 1100 points from 21 fish and ended up fourth. At least we know what to do next year. This was by far the best organised classic we've fished. The name tags made it impossible to cheat, the food was much better and the nightly briefings were short and sweet. Looking forward to next year as long as the proposed changes aren't put into place.

Dougys 90

[Why-ting]

Robsee

There some nice fish you got there mate. Spewin we decided to try and stay away from the crowds. Kalinga bank fired on the first day. I would like to know how many fish were pulled from there over the classic. Probably 1/5 of the fish i reckon from most of the reports. Good to see someone reaching thier goals. Our classic hoodoo haunts us. Next year im going to target the deeper water a bit more i think.

Adamy

Yeah i remember seeing you guys. Someone yelled out "no fish here" and i pulled a fish straight after they said it. We pulled 4 flatties, star gazer, estury cod, small maori cod and dropped a few fish all in about 1/2 hour. I had a pearl white 3in poggy gulp which did most of the damage then my brothers also swapped to the same lure in sardine and pumkinseed and started to pull a few. Would of been nice to boat some of the fish we dropped, but thats just fishin, wasnt our year.

Creek Vermin

Well done on the fourth place finish. You did well to pull 1100 points on the last day. I agree with the name tags was a good idea to stop the cheaters. I dont understand why people would cheat in a comp like this as it is only for trophys. And whos going to enjoy a throphy that they didnt really deserve.

Also not a big fan on some of the proposed changes. I think they need to get some decent caterers back next year. I would not mind paying an extra $10 or so for decent food. Bring back the ribs Im sure Greeny would agree ;D Dont Think the supplying of one certain lb braid would be a good idea. As i have about 6 different rods i use and i know alot of other blokes do too and this would cost a fortune to change all rods fished in the classic. I dont think barbless hooks would be a good idea as flatties throw the hooks pretty easy and would be a hard rule to enforce. Just my opinion.

Cheers Whytey

[Creek_Vermin]

Whitey- Yeah some decent food would be good but at least it was edible this year. Not a fan of any of the changes. The only environet that can hold a 90cm lizard comfortably is the barra one and it's too big and bulky to fit in most boats. Barbless hooks is ridiculous and so is the one line class. How do you jig a 7 inch lure in 40 feet of water on ten braid??

[JT]

G'day guys - I am glad you all enjoyed the comp, hopefully it will be bigger and better next year. With the proposed changes please remember that they are exactly that - proposed. Your feedback is noted and I for one as a committee member am against the line class proposal and also the barbless hooks. If we were using trebles then I might reconsider, but that single hook probably doesn't warrant it. Did you all voice your concerns on the survey forms?

I have all the Team scores and individual scores so if anyone needs anything please drop me a PM.

Cheers

John

[Toppy]

Whytey it was good to meet you guys too & having a few laughs!
Did you replace that rod that broke at the pool?
Thats always a bummer breaking rods! I think Franco has the record, 4 in one go. OUCH :(
Franco skipped the country for a few days just in case you have tried to P.M him & got no reply.
Cheers
Toppy