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Harris Rides Ralphs to Derwent BREAM Win

Hobart’s Isaac Harris has been fishing ABT BREAM events on the Apple Isle since he was old enough to in the late 2000s. In March 2024, he achieved his goal of winning an ABT BREAM event from the front of the boat. Only took him 15 years.

He did it in a borrowed boat that came from previous Derwent BREAM Champion and friend, Adam Crick, and he did it solely in Ralph’s Bay - an extensive flats fishery in the southern part of the arena that daunts most of the field, but does yield tournment winning bags. And that’s saying something when Ralphs trumps the main river proper.

Predominantly, Isaac rode a single bait to victory in super shallow water - the Lucky Craft Flash Minnow 65 in a couple of colours (Ghost Sayori and Flash Misty Shad) that he fished on a variety of Shimano outfits in water averaging 40-50cm deep.

“I was surprised that it fished so well on the first day,” Harris said, “between my non boater and I we must have landed around 50 bream. A lot of these were small, but there was a smattering of bigger bream amongst them, which helped the bag.”

Remember - Tasmanians call 32-34 fork length bream ‘small’.

The extensive Ralph’s Bay flats are punctuated with soft cunjevois. They look like rock, but absolutely catch any lure that comes near them and unless you catch the other treble with a net, they won’t come free.

“I lost around 8 baits that I just couldn’t get back on the second day,” Isaac said. This is the price of fishing Ralphs.

Harris targeted the rockier flats with the shallow diving Flash Minnows to do nearly all of his damage. A long cast followed by a high-sticking retrieve kept the lure our of reach of the cunje, but right in the strike zone for the bream.

He used the new Shimano Stradic threadlines spooled with 0.6PE Kairiki braid and a short length of 6lb leader. His rods were mainly the Zodias 702UL and an Anarchy model.

“I find I get the best casts when my leader isn’t on the reel, so it starts short and stays short,” Isaac explained, “and the bream would usually hit the bait on the pause. It’s the standard Tasmanian twitch.”

Pocketing $3,600 for his efforts and a spot in the 2024 Daiwa BREAM Series Grand Final, Harris will need to set a new goal now.

BREUKEL BAGS SECOND PLACE

Victorian BREAMer Peter Breukel was the in-form angler of the Tasmanian Tour. Placing top 10 in every event he fished (including the Hobie Kayak Series), the time he spends on the water was well rewarded with pleasing results.

After being in town for a prefish before the off-limits period, Peter decided that Ralphs Bay was his best chance of a good result. He wasn’t wrong, finishing second to Harris by 800g and a mere 10 grams ahead of a fast-finishing Steve Morgan.

Like Harris, Breukel didn’t hedge his bets with spots in Ralphs AND the Derwent River. He was Ralphs-or-nothing for the event. And it paid off.

“On the prefish day, my best 5 bream went 7.3kg, so it was a pretty easy decision about where I was going to go,” Peter explained. He’s done a lot of shallow flats bonefishing and the flats of Ralphs were a similar setup for both type of country and fish behaviour.

That decision was validated when he landed 5 bream in his first 5 casts on tournament morning on the first of 6 spots that he’d identified on Google Earth during the practice.

Breukel used a Daiwa Infeet EX 722ULRS rod paired with an Exist reel, 8lb Daiwa Expedition J-Braid and 5lb Yamatoyo Chinu Harris leader and his two baits of note were the Hurricane Twitch 40 in Spooky Smig and the Duo Realis 80SP in Prism Gill.

After landing around 15 fish on the first day, Peter aimed for a repeat, but the glassy conditions hampered his efforts.

“I still had a smallish bag by 11am, but I resisted the temptation to head back upriver and ground it out in the bay. When the breeze picked up at the end of the session, I managed to upgrade the whole bag before I had to come back,” he said.

That flurry locked in the second placing - his highest in ABT events.

FITZGIBBON LOVING BACK OF BOAT

Last year, struggling boater, Goulburn’s Jon Fitzgibbon, decided that he needed some more time as a non-boater to help refine his skills and to get his confidence back. Taking his first non-boater title at the Derwent was a just reward for the decision.

“It’s a good feeling to get that confidence back where you’re concentrating on what you’re doing and not everyone else. I like doing my own thing,” he said after collecting the trophy and Daiwa prize pack that accompanied it.

Jon used a shallow and deep version of the same lure to work the various depths his boaters fished through the event - they were a shallow and deep Smith Panish in chrome colour.

“When we were fishing 4-6 feet deep, I’d use the shallow and in 6-12 feet of water I’d use the deep,” Fitzgibbon explained.

Jon’s combos included a couple of Duffrods Edition Blacks paired with Daiwa Sol reels and both were spooled with 5lb straight through fluorocarbon. He fished with Ben Cook on the first day and Jason Mayberry on the second.

The Duffrods are an interesting story.

“My young bloke won the Rookie of the Year a couple of years ago, so I got to test the Duffrods out. I liked them and I how have bought plenty of them!” Jon continued.

“I would never have fished the Derwent River if it wasn’t for ABT. You need a good excuse to go fishing and ABT is that excuse,” he concluded.