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Day 2 6kg Monster Bag Steals Victory in the Humminbird Grand Final.

The weekend of the 24th and 25th of November saw the top 50 teams from the 2012 Humminbird Bream Classic Series head to Million Dollar Metung on the Gippsland Lakes for the big one the 2012 Humminbird Bream Classic Invitational. Which so many exceptional anglers in the field it was sure to be a fiercely contested tournament with everyone being a chance of winning. After reports of a less than perfect prefish filtered through from a number of teams on Friday it seemed that the Gippsland Lakes wasn't going to hand over fish easily and the boys would have to earn every bream that entered their live wells. For Team Domagill's Damien Domogala and Steve Gill this weekend would give them a fairy tale finish to the year.

While the anglers were greeted on Day 1 to the most picture perfect conditions with no wind, bright sunshine and a rising temperature, it wasn't the most appropriate conditions to get bream wanting to feed. At 7am teams blasted off in all directions just illustrating that no real consistent concentrations of bream were found on prefish. For Team Domagill they made the gamble to head to Tom's Creek after also not having the most impressive prefish, but decided it was the place where they got their biggest legal for the day so was worth a shot. Using a combination of Daiwa Steez 2004 and Shimano Soare 1000 reels matched to G-Loomis TSR 862 GLX and Pflueger Supreme rods, spooled with Sunline Castaway and Yamatoyo braids and Sunline FC Rock and Yamatoyo Harris Fighter fluorocarbon leaders the boys begin setting about the task of getting their five. "Starting off in 47th position on day one saw us steaming towards Toms Creek. Arriving with no one else there we started fishing in the same spot where our best fish was caught on the previous day. Within the first hour we had two fish in the well and plugged away to finish our bag around 11am. After catching our fifth and final fish for the day all on Jackall Chubby lure we decided to head off to try and find bigger fish" Damien said. After failing to find those all-important upgrades on Day1 Team Domagill weighed in 5/5 bream for 3.83kg having them sitting in 7th position going into Day 2 and a massive 1.48kg behind the lead team in Blueys Hunting and Fishing's Matt Leach and Robert Harvey who set the Maria Lures Best Bag on Day 1 with an impressive 5/5 bream for 5.31kg. Also coming to the scales on Day1 and was never headed was a cracking Eco-Gear Big Bream weighing 1.69kg caught by Team Colac Tackle's Steve Parker Declan Betts. Day 1 also saw the crowning of the 2012 Club Marine Team Of The Year which went to Team Gamakatsu-Atomic's Paul Malov and Alex Franchuk for their stella year in the qualifying rounds.

Day 2 started in much the same fashion as the first with beautiful blue skies, no wind and the temperature already getting up by 6am. For the top ten things couldn't be more intense with many spots on the Gippsland Lakes always having the potential to shut down on day 2 meaning it was still anyways tournament to win. This is exactly what played out for Team Domagill. After making their way back to Tom's Creek and fishing the productive ground from Day 1 the boys found themselves with no fish in the well after the first hour and faced with a tough decision to stay or move. "With no fish by 8am we decided to use our Humminbird sounder to get us back on the fish and when the sounder starting marking fish in an area close by we landed a 40cm fork fish on a Dan Stead pimped Maria 38 Crank weighing around 1.5 kg then two other smaller fish giving us three fish by around 11:15am. After this the bite changed and we hooked and missed fish after fish forcing us to change our retrieve pattern to try and tempt the fish into taking the lure more aggressively. Once we worked out the retrieve necessary to tempt the fish the next two hours saw us catching and upgrading at least five or six times including a 39cm fork fish that had our spirits well and truly up. Finally when Steve hooked and carefully landed another 39cm fork fish on a Eco-Gear CX40 HS in colour 533 we knew we were in with a very good chance of a healthy top ten finish" Damien said.

It was now 1pm and time to hand the responsibility of getting their prized bag back to the weigh in over to their ever reliable Legend Alpha 199. But even at 70mph the 38km trip back to the weigh in gave the boys plenty of time to ponder what may be and when they sat their bag of what looked like 8 or 9 bream not 5 on the scales the crowd went wild as Team Domagill had turned the tournament on its head with 5/5 bream for 6.09kg giving them the Maria Lures Best Bag and coming from 7th position to snatch victory from Team No Vibes Stuart Carruthers and Daniel Brady. "We were absolutely stoked to be crowed the 2012 Humminbird Bream Classic Champions we've been so close before to getting a win and to finally break through in the final is awesome, but we couldn't have done it without sponsors like Legend Boats at Hyper Marine, EJ Todd, Sunline, Maria, Luckycraft, Eco-Gear and Honda.

With 2012 all but a memory now all eyes are set on Rnd 1 of the 2013 Humminbird Bream Classic Series at Docklands on the 2nd and 3rd of February as part of the BIA Summer Boat Show. If your keen to get your team involved then log onto www.vicbreamclassics.com.au for all the entry details or call tournament director Bill Hartshorne on 0409 820 070