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Stingel keeps St Helens BREAM Trophy in TAS

It’s been a while between drinks for Tasmanian BREAM boater, Grant Stingel. Winning a trophy from the back of the boat in the Derwent river over a decade ago, Stingel added to the collection with a win in the Boater division of the Daiwa BREAM Series in the Minn Kota round at St Helens on Tasmania’s east coast.

In fact, the expansive flats fishery fished as well as ABT has ever seen, with over three 10kg+ limits topping the boater scoreboard, of which Stingel’s was the heaviest.

Here’s how he got it done.

Grant did pre-fish the arena on matching tides earlier in the year and refined down a location on shallow, rocky flats lower in the system.

“I found the right size fish there, but there probably wasn’t as many as in other areas on the arena,” he said, “and luckily, I has the spot basically to myself for the two tournament days.”

“The fish were super shallow - sometimes it seemed like they were in 10cm of water, so it was all about long casts as shallow as I could get the lures,” he said.

Grant used a combination of two Lucky Craft hard bodied lures to get the job done, both from the Lucky Craft stable - a Tango Shad and a Flash Minnow.

He fished both of these baits on straight through fluorocarbon (Sniper FC). He fished the Tango on 5lb, matched with a Dobyns rod and Shimano reel while the 65 Flash Minnow he cast on a Palms Pinwheel rod and 4lb main line.

Grant’s first day bag was a solid mix of kilo plus fish, but the second day was more of a mix of sizes. It included the Maui Jim Big Bream (1.52kg) and a fish a third of that size.

Ultimately, he collected the win easily enough, with over 400g lead over Mario Vukic.

“It’s all about that EJ Todd relationship for me,” he concluded, “the rod, line and baits I have confidence in and I hope that I’ve repaid their faith in me.”

VUKIC RACKS UP ANOTHER SECOND

Victorian BREAMer and Tassie bream lover, Mario Vukic, is one of the most consistent anglers whenever ABT visits this big bream flats factory. Typically grinding out massive limits within sight of the start line, Vukic was forced to change his attack this year when fish he’d historically exploited were gone.

“I visited the dropoff several times during practice and on Day One of the event and it was definitely barren,” he explained, however, he wasn’t beaten for long, falling back to a flats pattern that he followed as it changed over the event days and yielded him limits topping 5kg each day.

“On the first day, it took a while running around to various spots to catch a small limit, but when we finally found them on a flat near the oyster racks, everything was upgraded to 35-36 fork length fish,” he said. A final couple of upgrades made the bag top the magical 5kg mark.

On the second day, the tide rose slower and lower and Vukic struggled to connect to the quality of fish he needed to challenge for the win.

He eventually encountered the right quality of fish casting to some outside oyster racks and then refined that pattern to eventually drop another 5kg+ bag onto the scales.

“The fish were definitely concentrated on the older racks with less weed growth underneath,” he explained.

Mario’s main weapon was a Hurricane Sprat soft bait in both The Gun and Machete colours. He fished it on TT 1/20oz #1 jighead, 6lb Sunline V-Hard leader and Castaway #1 PE braided line. His rod was a Daiwa Battler Water Zombie paired with a Daiwa Certate 2500 threadline reel.

ROTIN BEST AT THE BACK

It’s fair to say that the travelling pair of Mario Vukic and Jesse Rotin loved their sojourn to St Helens. Previously in Tasmania, Jesse won the non boater trophy in the Derwent River. This victory completes his Tasmanian collection.

Although as he was (unsuccessfully) casting a fly on the practice day and endangering his boater, winning the event couldn’t have been further from his thoughts.

Jesse again displayed the determination and adaptability that’s led him to several wins from the back of the boat in recent years.

Paired with Tony Curwen on Day One, Rotin experienced an early flurry to catch a limit and then a 4-hour gap in the action before upgrading in the last hours in a sandy ridge within sight of the start line.

Day 2 with Mark Hayes started the same, with his first fish in the opening 10 minutes of fishing and then a long dry spell.

“Mark then made a great decision and moved to a place he’d caught bream before and we ground them out at a fish an hour, but they were quality fish,” Jesse said. His Day Two bag averaged over a kilogram a fish.

“Haysey was great and very encouraging. I said I was happy after landing the first kilo fish and he was into me to stick at it and catch more. It was good advice,” he continued.

Rotin used a shallow jerkbait/soft plastic combination to get the fish in the well.

He fished a Daiwa INFEET Sazanami (ADEL Ayu) on an 722LRS rod matched with an Infeet 2000 reel, 8lb J Braid and a 4lb X Link leader.

His other successful outfit was an INFEET EX 712LFS and Caldia 2000, spooled with 10lb J Braid Expedition and 3lb J Thread Finesse FC leader. On this he fished a variety of colours (but mainly olive oil) BaitJunkie 295 Flicks with 1/20oz HWS or Jigheads - depending on the situation.

“In the calm conditions it’s all about the quiet, finesse retrieve,” he said.