Yamashita Squid Series, Fishing Fever round 1 Hastings Victoria.

Day 1 Yamashita Squid Series 2011, Fishing Fever Round Hastings.

Bag weights of 3 squid weighed live and released

1. Little Hooker - Quinn Scott & Adam Crocombe: 3 squid 3675g
2. Team Shimano / Bar Crusher - Brendan Wing & Finn Wing: 3 Squid 3575g
3. Team Peninsula Total Tackle - Dan Lee & Marcus "BAZ" Gorman: 3 Squid3125g
4. Team Fishing Fever - Lee Rayner & Morne Muller: 3 Squid 2245g
5. Team Mrfisho/Pelagic Extreme - Michael Mizzi & Matthew Pilley: 3 Squid 2175g
6. Team Victorian Salt Water Fishing - Dale McClelland & Paul Barton: 3 Squid1670g
7. Team Gladiator/Gan Craft - Andrew Wilson & Leigh Hallet: 1350g
8. Team Yamashita - Dominic Costanzo & Glen McDonnell : DNF -750g

Berkley Big Squid - Team Little Hooker: 1540g

Was a great start to the morning with all Teams present and accounted for, this first round had a brilliant field of anglers and for new comers would have been a brilliant look at how the events are run and also as a measuring stick against some of the best egi anglers in Victoria, Team Yamashita led the field out of the Hastings Channel at 0700 sharp with all other teams following with a 10 second delay. Similar tactics and locations were shared by most anglers as the chase for fish in dark and dirty water north of Stoney Point and a little clearer down Flinders way. Team Vicsalt was the first team in to weigh a full bag of healthy squid. We were fortunate to have some very helpful anglers who displayed some real acts of sportsmanship as Team Yamashita was unable to return to the weigh in area after motor problems Team Vic Salt was able to assist in towing team Yamashita back to Hastings from Tankerton, a real feat in North head winds so a very big thank you to Team Vicsalt and also team Mrfisho who also offered to render assistance during competition hours. as teams arrived to weigh the position of first changed 3 times before the boys from little hooker finished the day off in first with a close follow into second with Team Shimano/Barcrusher with young 5 year old Finn claiming the heaviest squid in the bag for his team. Great to see a bit of interest from the local fisho's who had never seen an event like this before and the attraction of the 2 1000 litre tanks was a fair spectacle for the few who came past.

Speacial thanks.
Steve Mills from EJ Todd for helping with the set up and putting up some great Yamashita Displays with all the new Egi O Q Live deep and shallow range.
Lee Rayner and Morne Muller for couriering around some deliveries for us.
Wayne Freibe for some great last minute ecogear prize packs.
Lowrance for coming on board for the team of the year prize of 2 HDS units
Kim, Dan and Pete for helping out on the day and in the time leading up to the events.

Look out day 2 here we come.

Ready set squid

Briefing complete for the Tournament in the morning, all questions answered and all rules covered, now all they have to do is catch the squid, I wish all the competitors the best and a safe journey over the 2 days of competition, big thanks to the sponsors who have made it happen
Yamashita, Fishing Fever, GanCraft, Shimano, Berkley, Sunline, Ej Todd, ABT and the new kid on the block for the angler of the year Lowrance.
There is no way we would have got any where without the support and I can not express how much I appreciate not only the sponsorship but also the support offered by each sponsor.

Will post some pictures and results after day 1 tomorrow night

Yamashita Squid Series Fishing Fever Round

For those fishing in the Fishing Fever round at Hastings in Victoria this weekend don't forget the briefing at the Westernport Angling Club rooms on Marine Parade in Hastings (next to boat ramp) The breifing starts at 8:00PM and is open to the public for those who are keen to see how things work but have yet to enter the event and we welcome any one to come down and talk with us on any queries about the event. It looks like we have dodged a bullet with the weather, with wind reaching 120km an hour along the western shores of Westernport this week the weather Gods have given us a break and given us a nice sea breezes on Saturday to 15 knots and similar on Sunday with wind increasing on Sunday afternoon.

Australian Egi Tournaments has just upped the ante.

Australian Egi Tournaments have just upped the ante for the Yamashita Squid series Fishing Fever round

Minimum $1000 First prize,
Second is cash as per entries and a $300 Shimano Sephia Rod Prize pack from Fishing Fever
Third is $400 Berkley Egi Master Prize pack
Big squid is a $500 Berkley Egi Master Prize Pack

Forms must be in by 1500 on Friday. If you are curious about how it works or need more info call Paul Carter on 0417590547 or email ecofreak@bigpond.com

Countdown to the Yamashita Squid series Hastings

5 Days and counting for the first round of a National series of squid comps in Australia, everything ready to go and heaps of squid in Western Port the location of the first qualifying round.
If any one is interested in popping down for a look at how it all works the start will be at the Hastings Boat Ramp in Victoria with a sprint start at 0700 with the weigh in at 1400 Saturday
Day 2 on Sunday will start with a chase start at 0700 and again the weigh in at 1400 with prizes and presentation expected by 1600

For more info I can be contacted on 0417590547

Flinders and Sorrento weekend

Fished Sorrento in Port Phillip Bay on the Saturday just gone, was sad to say that we did not see anything worth taking photo's of but managed a bag of 20 squid without a struggle, all small squid from 25 to 30 cm hoods, surprising to see after a couple of weeks of some bigger versions. I tried to top it off with a trip to Flinders with the guys from That's Fishing TV but struggled to find anything at all worthwhile, we only got 3 squid and only about 25cm hood size, we worked the Flinders Reef area in Western Port for 5 hours losing heaps of gear along the way, at last count it was 9 Gan Craft egi-jya, 4 Gancraft ou-Jya, 4 megabass dartcrew UDSL, 4 Megabass Dartcrew 2.9 egi, 4 Yamashita Egi O Q Live, 4 Ecogear Fishleague Flash Max and 4 Evergreen's. A very expensive day on the water. That said I will be back for more punishment of my wallet very soon. Maybe it was the effect of the full moon or maybe it was simply the flogging they got from the public holiday, I have never seen so many boats in the area we were fishing. Was still great to get out with mates and enjoy the water.

Boat Show Day 1

Nice day at the Show with good crowds, not too busy and not too quiet, lots of time to walk around and have a chat with friends and was great to see a heap of familiar faces coming in to the Fishing Fever Stand. Highlight for me was watching Lee and Adam talk about Egi Fishing to a fresh audience who had never heard of it before, very receptive audience and is another good sign of Egi Fishing popularity in Australia.

Fishing Fever Stand

Adam 'Mad Dog' Royter Giving Egi talk

Lee Rayner (Fishing Fever Tackle Store, Adventure Bound TV) Giving Egi Talk

Melbourne Boat Show

Will be at the Melbourne Boat show on Thursday and Friday helping out on the Fishing Fever stand so pop past if are there and say hi, am hoping to keep the weekend free though as another search for some big southern Port Phillip Bay Squid is on the agenda. Been some nice squid coming in and we still have about a month before they start moving in bigger numbers, good sign so far.

I am going to also have a look at some of the squid reef we have been building over the last few years and see how they are progressing, if last weekend is anything to go by then we are in for a treat as the big ones we caught a fortnight ago came from an area near one of our squid reefs. Later on this year we will be working with a diver to implant mobile squid reef nearby common squid breeding areas, once the reef has become laden with eggs then the reef will be transported underwater to one of our constructed permanent reefs. We are doing this for a few reasons but mainly to take the pressure off the current spawning areas as they are relatively small and are well known to anglers this will hopefully allow squid to continue spawning at current known locations as well as create a new population of squid that can spawn with out angler pressure for a while to increase population doubling times and maintain an already healthy population of squid. I will be speaking to the DPI about a squid reef program in the coming months so if any one has any input they would like to pass on all thoughts are appreciated.

  Great day on the water in southern Port Phillip bay, Melbourne. Started off a bit slow with hundreds of small squid plagued the southern areas of PPB from Blairgowrie through to Point Lonsdale.



 Slight Change in tact and moved into a 4.5 meter deep area that was very reefy and we decided to battle through the little ones and keep at the larger models in the hope that one of the breeders had come in early.

Took a little while but they started to get better at the top of the high tide around the Portsea area once the wind had picked up a bit to approx 10 knots, until then the wind had been zero so maintaining a drift was tough in the boat

 Egi of choice was the Gan Craft Egi- Jya 3.5 in Heart Panda and Orenjiriarushurinpu.  Most dissapointing moment of the day was loosing an egi that was a gift from Yuya Nakahira San and the only one in Australia, still in Australia just lodged in the bottom of the sea and not in my tackle bag. So the last photo was the last time it will see a squid.


We ended up with a few nice ones with the biggest going about 45 cm and weighed approx 2.8kg, looks like PPB stil has another month before the breeders start so time will tell

Looking forward.

Weather and water temp indicates that this weekend should be the big squid weekend in Westernport, will be out on both Saturday and Sunday in the hope of getting some pictures for every one. If all else fails I will be in Portland again on the Southern Bluefin Tuna. Would rather spend time on egingu but as long as I am on the water nothing else matters

Flinders

Attempted a trip to Flinders In Westernport this morning, woke at 0500 only to find the weather people had placed a strong wind warning, wind from the north at 30 knots is not the sort of wind we like to travel in wind versus tide. always tomorrow.

First Blog

Hi there folks, I have started this blog to track all my fishing and mainly egi trips over time, hope to keep every one up to date as I travel around Australia and the world fishing