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Team Monster Fish land the monster fish to take out the 2010 Humminbird Bream Classic Invitational.

The weekend of the 27th and 28th of November 2010 saw the top 50 qualifers from the 2010 Humminbird Bream Classic Series make their way to picturesque Nelson on the Glenelg River to battle it out for the big one, the 2010 Humminbird Bream Classic Invitational. With the Glenelg River coping a barrage of fresh water in the lead up to the final most anglers were certain that big bags would be very hard to come by, but for Team Monster Fish's Stephen Bacon and Dion Vale they managed to put together a 2 day bag of fish more suited to the likes of Mallacoota Inlet, totally dominating the weekend and claiming the crown of Humminbird Bream Classic Champions for 2010.

With the weather forecast in the lead up to the tournament predicting wind, rain and a top of 15 degrees each day, unheard of for the end of November, the anglers weren't to optimistic that the Glenelg River would turn it on as they would expect at this time of year. After being spoilt on the Friday with blue skies and warm conditions the anglers awoke on Saturday morning to find Mother Nature had decided to have some fun greeting them with drenching rain. For Team Monster Fish's' Stephen Bacon and Dion Vale they didn't have to head far from the start as their plan for the weekend was to fish the mouth of the Glenelg River and focus on the flats in close proximity to the main channel. "On Saturday with the wind not blowing all that hard we were able to put our electric motor to good use and hold in the current which enabled us to cast our soft plastics up into the current and work them back slowly with the aid of the water flow. The key was to move the plastic as slowly as possible and wait for the big bream that were sucking worms and other bait out of the sand to hone in on the soft plastic and suck it in" Stephen said. The tackle combination the boys used to execute this technique consisted of Nitro Vapor and Nitro Finesse Bream rods, matched to 1000 sized Shimano Stradic reels and spooled with 4lb Berkley Crystal Fire-line. The soft plastic that did the damage on the Saturday was a cut back Berkley Gulp 4 inch Turtle Back Worm in the Watermelon colour rigged on a size 2 1/16 Pigs Jigs jighead. After a great first day on the water the boys headed to the weigh in quietly confident that they would be in the top ten, and after their 5/5 bream bag pulled the scales down at 4.64kg they were well and truly in the top ten and in fact leading the field by more than a kilogram.

With the rain being replaced with howling wind on the Sunday morning it was going to very tough for Team Monster Fish to repeat the same technique from the previous day as the electric motor just didn't have the power needed to hold them against the strong south westerly gale. "We knew the bream would still be there, but we had to improvise a little in order to be able to work the lures as slowly as needed and the only option we had was to anchor in the one spot and wait for the bream to come up onto the flats and feed" Dion said. With more boats pushing down the front to try their luck at a better quality bream the fishing started to become much tougher than Saturday with the larger fish shutting down some what. In an attempt to finesse one of the big bruising Glenelg River bream into biting the boys changed lures, paying dividends. "We decided to change to a small 2 inch Berkley Gulp minnow grub in the watermelon colour along with the small 2 inch Berkley Gulp sand nugget and the fish really responded well to the smaller lure as we then managed to hook and land 5 more quality bream" Stephen said. With Day 2 finally over and nothing left to do but weigh in the boys pulled the pick and headed for the scales. Never really challenged Team Monster Fish weighed in another 5/5 bream for 4.64kg the exact same weight as yesterday but with one small difference. Sitting in their day 2 bag was a blue nosed beast that pulled the scales down at 1.64kg giving them the Eco-Gear Big Bream Prize, their bags of 4.64kg were also the heaviest of the weekend giving them the Berkley Best Bag Prize and to top it all off with a massive 10/10 for 9.28kg they took out the 2010 Humminbird Vic Bream Classic Invitational by a staggering 3.22kg

While just being crowned the 2010 Champions was reward enough the boys also walked away with over $22,000 in cash and prizes consisting of Humminbird Sounders, Minn-kota electric motors, Engel Fridge Freezers, Nitro Rods, Spotters Penetrator sunglasses, Eco-Gear lures, Berkley soft plastics and to top it all off thanks to Emma Cartwright from Anglers Choice a 5 day fully guided fishing trip to Dundee Beach in the NT to fish for Barramundi, Jew Fish, Spanish Mackerel, Tuna and Sailfish. Considering Stephen has never even been on a plane before it should be a trip of a life time for the pair.

If you are interested to be involved in the 2011 Humminbird Bream Classic Series then check out the ad in this issue of VFM for all the tournament dates and then log onto www.vicbreamclassics.com.au for all the rules, regulations and entry forms.