Noosa Grand Slam Report

[matt fraser]

The Inagural Noosa Grand Slam was held on the weekend. Here is the report and some pictures.

Some magnificent fish, and a great variety of estuary sportfish were weighed-in at the inaugural Noosa Grand Slam.

Fourteen teams battled it out on the picturesque Noosa River for the inaugural Noosa Grand Slam. In hot and sometimes windy conditions, many teams found the system to be fishing quite tough, although there were some magnificent fish and a great variety of species weighed in over the two sessions.

Anglers travelled to Noosa from as far a Toowoomba, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and even Yamba to compete in this new format of catch and release competition angling. Hailed as a great success by competitors, the format allows teams to target a variety of estuary sportfish and bring their best five fish to the weigh master, alive and kicking. Bonus weight is added to the bag for each different fish species bought in.

The Saturday afternoon session started at 1pm and concluded at 7pm with teams meeting back at Chaplain Park, Noosaville for the weigh in. Team Hooked on Berkley, comprising of local guns Michael Geary and Nigel Webster quickly took charge of the leader board with an impressive bag of three bream, a mangrove jack and a flathead for a weight of 3.470kg. Nigel’s jack weighed in at 1.585kg also took the lead in the biggest jack category.

Team Hifields weighed the second largest bag with a good flathead and a cod for a bag of 2.140kg. Other impressive fish weighed-in included a 1.630kg tailor by Team Injustus, a 1.835kg flathead by Team Miller and a nice diamond trevally by Team Hectic.

5am Sunday morning the field once again hit the river for a six-hour session. Conditions were perfect for a great morning on the water, and in general, most teams turned in a better performance in the second session.

As the final tallies were done, Michael Geary and Nigel Webster from Hooked on Berkley took top honours. They backed up their great first-session bag with an impressive 3.035kg bag of three bream, one trevally and a solid grunter. The team spent most of their time in the lower reaches fishing around boats and pontoons. Working as a team, in the low light conditions one would fish topwater, while the other worked deep using either a lipless crankbait or Gulps. As the sun came up they spent time in the deeper holes where they got some of their better quality fish.

When fishing topwater, Mick used a skitter pop rigged on a Diawa Longcast with a Diawa Airity. Nigel used a Berkley Pro tactic PT700 3-6kg with an ABU Cardinal 804 spooled with 10lb Fireline and 10lb vanish leader with a Berkley Frenzy Popper. Nigel’s jack came on the same gear using a Berkley Frenzy Power Rattl’r.

When targeting bream Nigel fished a Berkley Pro Tactic PT610 with an ABU Cardinal 802, 4lb Fireline and 4lb Vanish leader using a 2” shrimp in lime tiger rigged on Nitro torpedos. Mick used a Diawa Sparrow with a Diawa Certate finesse spooled with 2lb Crystal fireline, 4lb Sunline FC Rock leader rigged with TT hidden weights and the 2’ Gulp shrimp in new penny.


What makes Mick and Nigel’s win even more impressive is the number of hard luck stories they had, but still managed to take the top spot. In the first session, Mick released a legal trevally because he thought the length was supposed to be 35cm, Nigel then got a 73cm flathead which is an impressive fish, but 3cm over the legal slot limit. In the second session, Mick got smoked by a jack and Nigel lost another big jack that he thought he had well into open water, but in a determined run the fish found a rope to wrap itself around. The team spent twenty minutes trying to free the fish from the rope, as they could still feel it on the line. Eventually the line gave way and the fish was lost. They also caught a nice Tarpon that didn’t survive in the livewell.

Winners of the Gold Coast Grand Slam, Team G.Loomis of Michael and William Horn backed up their winning form with a very solid second place. After a session-one bag of 1.770kg the Horns stormed home on Sunday morning with a nice 3.975kg bag, to take their total weight to 5.745kg. Their second bag of fish included three bream, one tarpon and a cracking mangrove jack! In the low light conditions they fished Berkley Frenzy poppers on Loomis Walleye GLX rods for their trevally and tarpon. They then spent a lot of time fishing the moored boats and jetties for lots of small bream and moses perch, but didn’t really hit the jackpot until they found a midstream rock bar. Utilising Loomis SR842s rods, Willy was using 10lb PE braid with 4lb Sunline FC leader and Mick rigged with straight through 2lb Sunline FC. Drifting the rockbar using 1/12 and 1/8 oz jigheads rigged with 3” Gulp minnows and fry’s in lime tiger, the father and son team picked up some better quality bream, before Mick scored a very nice mangrove jack. Incredibly this fish was also taken on the 2lb line. The jack weighted in at an impressive 1.635kg, knocking off Nigel Webster’s fish by 50 grams. Mick commented that the Noosa fish went harder than his local Gold Coast jacks and it was quite a fight before the big jack made it to the net.

Team Hifield, Mick Henare and Darryl Hohn also fished well for the weekend to place in third postion, with a total weight of 3.29kg.

Over the course of the weekend, there were a total of eight estuary species accounted for with flathead, cod, trevally (golden, diamond and GT), tarpon, grunter, bream, whiting, mangrove jack.

Unfortunately a few fish were lost in livewells over the weekend, some due to deep hooking, and some due to inadequate livewell size or oxygen circulation. The Chippies were the victims of an inadequate livewell losing a very good tailor and a flathead which would have seen them well into the prizes.

Thanks to Berkley and Nitro for sponsoring the event, thanks also to Ed from Hooked on Angling and Outdoors for his local support of the event. Lastly, thanks to Shae and Shannon Watson for their assistance and photography at the event.

With the interest in the Grand Slam events growing, keep an eye out for more events next summer.

Matt

[the gecko]

Top report matt. I reckon this new format will be really taking off.
Some guys are guns on one species, and horrible on another, so this format gives everyone an incentive. Might have to give it a go next time.

Jack on 2lb, no leader? Im still shaking my head in disbelief.

cheers
Andrew

[yellahunter]

sounds like a great day Matt,

good to see a variety of species being targeted as well, a bit more interesting than just bream in my opinion.

mate what sort of action do you guys give the placcies for jacks?
do you give continuous small vibrations or a few big jerks etc.

cheers,

Ben

[ffejsmada]

G,day Matt,
Just posting to say well done on organising last w'ends comp.
Although I didn't fish, it was good to meet you and to see what was caught. It seemed to run very smoothly during weigh-ins, a top concept which will only get bigger and more popular as time goes by. I will be a definite starter next time.
Well done mate, say g'day to Dave G. for me.

Jeff.

[gregdeeth]

looks like another awesome comp matt. cant wait to one day have a tournement worthy boat.

[matt fraser]

Here is the results as well, I forgot to post them with the report

Results
1st Hooked on Berkley. Mick Geary/Nigel Webster 6.505
2nd G.Loomis. Mick and William Horn 5.745
3rd Hifields. Mick Henare/Darryl Hohn 3.29
4th Team Miller. Jason & Amy Miller 3.14
5th BJS Mossops. Arthur Hatsipetpou/Peter Herbst 2.5 (amended weight)
6th Katana. Warren Hughes/Rob Cooke 2.315
7th Injustus. Tim Leader/Trev Davies 1.630
8th Team Duce. Robert Charlton/Adrian Butler 1.18
9th Chippies. Craig Whitford/Rob Blackmore 1.17
10th Couriers Please. Darrin Crowley/Tyson Robertson .620
11th Team Hectic. Rick Dunnet/Zac Vuister .465
12th Temporary Glory. Darren Tinker/Russel Phipps .450
13th Bream Reapers. Matt Cockram/Nathan Boys .330
14th Sewer Rats. Ben Robson/Scott Stewart .20(time penalty)

Big Jack. Mick Horn - 1.635

Thanks for the positive comments guys, I came up with the idea of a multi-species catch and release comp, after regularly seeing and hearing of all the other good species caught in bream comps that are never recognised as great fish, just because they aren't bream.

Also the Gold Coast bream get flogged with about 7 or 8 bream comps a year. Thought I'd try and give them a break!

The other popular catch and release comp in SEQ is the flathead classic which is an awesome comp with huge popularity. But is just about flathead.

The most common feedback I get from guys who have fished the Grand Slams, is that it is different to try and target multi species in one session. You have to designate a certain amount of time to either bream or flathead or jacks, and choose which time in the tide and time of day to target them. A game plan is definitely needed, as well as a wider array of tackle. You can get lucky just fishing the one technique all session, but you still have to be good (like Mick Horn) to be able to pull serious fish on light gear.

I'd like to see a few more of the flathead classic anglers get involved next summer, because I know a lot of those guys also spend a lot of time chasing jacks/cod/trevally as well. The hardcore bream anglers have the advantage of being able to fill their bag with bream ok, and although they always complain about all the flathead they catch in bream comps, when it comes to targeting them, it seems to be a different story.

Losing fish in livewells is a bit of an issue for some teams, We didn't have problems at the Gold Coast, but a few fish were lost at Noosa. Some of the problems there were that some livewells were too small. Many of the anglers there were new to catch and release comps and it comes down to practice and knowing how to manage fish in livewells. Mick and Willy Horn kept a Tarpon alive all session with no problems.

The weigh-ins are definitely a good spectacle for all, as you everyone gets to see the fish being weighed and released.

The Grand Slam comps will be on again next summer, with the first one earmarked for the 1st of December. With another two over the summer.

Jeff, good to meet you, did you get any fish Saturday night?

Ben, I use small hops and twitches, with plenty of pauses in between. But Mick might get on here and give you his tips.

Cheers,

Matt

[hornet 1]

Matt,

I must congratulate you on the great form of tournament fishing you introduced this year and thank you for your time and effort organizing both events as I could imagine it would have been a little stressful at times. Thanks to the sponsors who helped donate the awesome prizes and give aways at each event and also to those at both events that helped you out in whatever form. I hope next year the events will be run again and you can get some newcomers to this form of tournament fishing. It’s a great concept and one you need a few techniques and a game plan for each session and this makes it an exciting days fishing. As for your kind comments, I think it’s a confidence thing in my tackle and technique and while I’m catching fish having fun joking around with my old man, then catching quality fish is a bonus.

Mick Horn

[Matthias]

Yep sounds like heaps of fun. Great report Matt. I would love to watch something like that event on TV. It would be interesting trying to keep a big jew alive for the weigh in.

I'm in the same boat as Greg, I mean I have no boat but we are in the same boat because we want a good boat. I think.

Pete.

[mickaroooney]

Hi Matt,
I thoroughly enjoyed this new fishing competition format It was an added bonus for me and my team mate to finish well up in the prizes.Great to hear from the guys that caught good fish as it is a way of learning other techniques from other competitors. Again thanks to the sponsors and yourself for a great comp. Are you considering having more comps on the sunshine coast next summer or will it be like this years events?

Thanks Heaps
Mick Henare

[matt fraser]

Thanks Mick and Mick, I enjoyed running the comps, a bit of work involved, but I was very lucky to have great helpers put their hands up to help out at each event.

Pete and Greg, Hang in there, I'm sure you'll get a tournament worthy boat, or hook up with a mate who has one.

I'm not sure about next years locations yet, I think Gold Coast, Noosa and Tweed next year, unless a sponsor comes on board that wants one elsewhere.

I am considering running it as a one day event on a Saturday. Session one 5.30am to 11.30am, session two 1.30pm till 7.30pm. With a BBQ in between and maybe even time for one of the gurus to do a presentation on tackle and techniques.

It would be a big day, but may be more appealing to more people to get it over and done with in one day.

Matt