That night we were blown away by the fishing
of the top teams. Heaps of 40kg plus bags and
Day Release were sitting on 48kg! Luckily the
top teams shared a few tips and we hit the water
on Day 2 with a new plan of fishing bigger soft
lipless crankbaits to hopefully interest the better
class of fish.
On the last day (4 1/2 hour session) we upgraded
three times with bigger lures making our smallest
fish 3.01kg and our largest at 4.88kg. Unfortunately,
even with a couple of kilos of upgrades, we dropped
down to 16th place.
What worked and what didn’t
We were lucky that we were camping with four of the top
10 finishers and able to access their brains and knowledge.
It seemed that we failed to find schools of the larger fish. The
top teams were fishing at schools of fish in the 4.5kg range;
we could only find schools of fish in the 3.5kg range. Add to this
the fact we used smaller, more traditional Windamere lures
and that pretty much sums up what didn’t work.
On the working side of the ledger, the Blade N Tails Ultralight Elite
scored heaps of fish on blades and grubs for our team and Day
Release even managed a horse over 60cm on the rod. For me it
was a great feeling seeing this rod in action on some very serious
fish, proving beyond doubt to me that it is big fish capable.
The stand out however was the embracing of the Fish Trap lures. We
used some of the 65mm versions and caught some great fish in colours
RD and PE, but it was Collo’s team using the 95mm Fish Trap in colour
MM that really had people talking. To say I am excited by what Mick and
his team mates did is a real understatement.
I also learnt some new retrieves for soft lipless crankbaits such as the Fish
Trap that I would not have thought about doing in a million years. I guess
that’s the difference between the top teams and a newbie to Windamere and
its goldens. They really are miles ahead on the curve, but I am running up that
hill just as fast as I can!
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