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Easter Junior Classic Gallery
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This issue, Caige Fenech of Offtap tells of his upcoming rise in the world of Game Fishing. He is fast becoming a Champion Junior Angler and has already won numerous Trophies. He is one to look out for in the future! If you would like your story inserted here in future issues, please send it, along with a few photos to anthony@infinity.net.au .
Caige Fenech Insight
By Caige Fenech
Hi , my name is Caige Fenech and fish with my father on his boat OffTap , I am 12yrs old and started Game fishing 2 yrs ago when my dad would take me out for dollies at the Fads, Great Fun, also jigging Kings on wrecks and deep reefs, my biggest Dollie to date is 87cm and biggest King on jig 89cm. I am a Junior member of the club and started with my first Tournament on Dads Boat , Whitesands in November 2007, we had a great time , I got my first Marlin on the Sunday, Tag and Release , also being first for the boat, Stripe Marlin approx. 65kg on 24kg. I won Junior T&R point score with an awsome array of prizes. Since then we venture to JB every chance we get and have now accumulated 9 fish T&R to boat with 4 going to me. Our latest feat was to come Runner Up Point Score Boat T&R at the Shoalhaven Open , with 5 Marlin T&R for the weekend and 2 of them going to me to make me Junior Point Score T&R winner. I like helping with deckie duties and driving boat , while Dad sets the spread.
From Dad…..
Caige my son fishes with me constantly on OFFTAP and has notched up some reasonable Fish on his belt, he's just turned 12yrs old and has YFT to 15kg as well as Kings on jigs to 85cm, he is a devoted angler and has picked up some good techniques to land his fish. Our best to date is the Whitesands Tournie just passed, being new members of JBGFC we were all set to try and get the junior in with some points, Saturday with a Tuna spread out we had 2 strikes the first one being a Beakie that pulled some 150m of line off before dropping hooks , the next day Sunday seemed too flat for a troll but with some time taken to tweak set up of spread, had the Marlin lures working fine. Headed wide to 550fathom mark before turning north to JB Canyons, a few ks off the Canyons I found a small mark on sounder representing bait, did a turn and went back over and not long after the Shotty 24kg let loose and a nice beakie made an appearance, Caige struggled to get the rod out of the Bait Board Holder on 8kg drag, harnessed up and away he was, 40 minutes later we had her boat side, first Tag & Trace for me, 10 minutes to revive her to a reasonable state before she could swim off on her own. Still buzzing from that day. I need to get Caige his boat licence soon so I can get me one of them beauties while he drives boat. Thanks to JBGFC for their hospitality and for a exceptionally well run event.
Caige Fenech
JBGFC Junior Member
This issue, Peter Greed gives us a bit of insight into what it's like fishing on board our Vice President's famous little Platey - "Outside II".
Peter Greed's Insight
By Peter Greed
Hi my name Peter Greed I'm a junior member of the JBGFC and I fish off my dads boat Outsider II. I first started game fishing when I was 4 ½ years old and caught my first tuna, which was 2kg bonito on 6kg line. It took me so long to land it that it managed to swim near the bottom and picked up a flathead on the bait jig in front of the bonito. So I ended up with a sand flathead and bonito at the same time since then we have moved to Jervis Bay when in 2003 I caught my first yellowfin tuna during the white sands tournament. Four years later I have successfully captured and tagged a short billed spearfish, albacore, Striped tuna, Kingfish, and had many unsuccessful attempts at Catching marlin up too 100kgs.
One of the high lights for me of the year, as game fishing goes would have to be the Whitesands Tournament. I am especially looking forward to this years white sands as there will be a NSW junior team competing against us local juniors should be a good competition and with yellowfin and albacore already being tagged and caught it should be a great weekend.
Peter Greed
JBGFC Junior Member
This issue, Josh Watts gives us a bit of insight into the amazing achievements in which Team One - "Ocean and Earth" aboard Danny Solberg's 2601 Striper- "Farout" had at last year's Whitesands Tournament.
Whitesands Comp.
By Josh Watts
It was the night before the Whitesands comp my dad and I checked on the internet. It predicted that there were warm currents out wide over the shelf. I was ready for a good weekend of fishing. I went to bed early and set my alarm.
Day I
My Dad, (Phil) and I woke up at 4.30, we headed off to the ramp to meet Danny the captain and Normo who were already there getting the boat in. The day was going to be nice and sunny, judging by the sunrise over Woollamia Creek. On the way to the bait grounds we saw what looked like a big kingie coming up to attack some fish. This excited everyone on the boat and was an encouraging sign. The air was cool at the bait ground so we hung there for about 20 to 30 minuets but got little, so we started to head out to the shelf.
Judging from the good reports the night before we headed out to the shelf in search for warm currents out wide. It was a smooth ride out in Danny's 26ft stripper. As we were heading out the water temperature started going down. It had gone from 18c to 17c and then dropped down to 16c. Our hopes were starting to drop. We all started asking questions, have we done the right thing coming out? Is there a better place we could go? The 8 :10 and 10 :10 sked had gone and boats were calling in fish and we had nothing. We then started to get warm water we were on the edge of the map and it was after 10 o'clock. We started to fish by wetting the some lures and trolling them.
The temperature was now over 20c. After about 10 minutes we had hooked up on some small fin. I was on first strike and easily retrieved in a small jellybean. When we got them in we started cubing, we were there for about 30 minutes and didn't get a thing. So we started trolling again and hooked up about 8-10 times, all rods were screaming.
Then my brand new 15kg Shimano rod (which I was meant to get for Christmas but was given early for the comp) went off. I was hooked up on this fish for around 20 minutes before it came up. It was a yellow fin, my dad (Phil the decky) went and got the gaff. He had a go at it, he missed it and it went back down taking all line that I had fought so hard to win. By this time I was sore I had sweat pouring off me and a very red face. I was thinking bad thoughts of my dad at this time. After about 15 or so minutes I was still on, I was getting tired and hot and was wishing dad could have gaffed it better the first time. Then the double came up, I got so excited but was worried that gaff man would miss it again so to be on the safe side I got another crew member (Normo) to gaff it. I was so relived after pulling in the 24.8kg yellow fin. I then went below deck to have a rest.
It was getting late so they decided to troll back. I was still asleep below deck till dad woke me up saying "Josh your on!" We had a triple hook up. I wound in some small fin, they all added to the tally points. The day's tally was something like 24 for the boat not counting a couple on ice and I had 13 fish for the day and my capture of 24.8 kg yellow fin on 15.
Day 2
Tired from the day before, we woke up a bit later. When we had got to the bait ground we started burling up. We picked up some little slimies that we used for live bait. We then headed out to the "secret spot" where we were yesterday; the water was not there so we headed south to the kink with good water temperature (approx 18c). We were all excited to get some good fin like the day before, but unfortunately it didn't start out that way. We only got out first hook up at around 9:OOam and then a double hook up at around 12 pm and that was it for the day. They were also only small, which I found a relief because my arms were killing from the day before. We tagged them, set them free and added them to our tally, which for day 2 was 3.
Day 3 (final day)
We were all starting to feel the effects of the previous days and woke up quite late to find that the weather reports were not looking as good as we expected. A front was passing through and we were all reluctant to going out. But after Danny made a few calls to boats on the water we decided to head out. It was a bumpy ride, we received a call from Barnacle Bill relaying that the heads were rough but the shelf had good conditions.
We didn't go and get some bait today, we just trolled some lures. We decided to change from the bigger lures to smaller lures with some hard bodies mixed in. this proved to be a good idea because the short corner with the teaser below went off every time. We got our first fish at around 10 am, it was a double hook up, they were all little jelly beans so it was easy on the big gear. The day saw us bring in 13 or so small fin around EKGs each (a blessing for my tired arms) and a tally of 8 on day 3.
Filling in the tag cards and checking out other catches was the next task before heading off to Husky Pub for the presentation. I was thinking how I was going in the comp after we heard not many fish were tagged and a few boats went home early. Team one scored well with the Tag and Release boat, Junior Tag and Release and Most Meritorious Junior. This was my first major fishing trip since breaking my C1 vertebrate in my neck January of 2006. Thanks to Ocean and Earth for sponsoring the team, Danny the skipper and all organisers of the competition.
By Josh Watt
13 Years old
Results of Jervis Bay Junior Classic
Held on the 6th and 7th of April 2007
By Anthony Greed and Paul Alcott
Firstly there should be a special thank you to the members that organised and put together this event, Paul Alcott, Phil Watts. I'd like say it is refreshing to see the support from general members other than the committee and is very welcome.
The weather for the Easter break was not so kind and saw a strong Southerly hit the bay on the first day of the tournament, even this did not stop some enthusiastic junior anglers on five boats braving the conditions to fish in what shelter could be found around the bay. Some of us did waste a little time and checked out the swell size at the entrance to the bay, but very quickly joined the rest of the boats burleying in sheltered area's of the bay. So the scene was set for a cold and wet couple of days fishing.
So as the first day progressed and some long burley trails filtered across the bay there was chatter on the radio from Great Capture, Laura Gamble was on to a small shark, little more radio chatter and shark was tagged and released. As fishing continued Tom Gerste on Outsider II hooked up and tagged shark, the rest of the day was very quite with plenty of chatter between boats.
The next morning conditions on the water showed very little improvement overnight but we were all there again to brave another day. Onboard Outsider II it was decided troll the entrance to bay, which produced one small kingfish tagged to Tom Gerste. Weather conditions didn't improve and we all ended up back over near the southern side of bay and once again trying for more sharks. Laura Gamble tagged another shark which put her into a convincing lead, I recall one other kingfish being tagged by another junior and that was about it for the tournament.
So the winners were as follow:
First Place went to Laura Gamble on Great Capture.
Second place went to Tom Gerste on Outsider II.
Well done Laura and Tom and thank you to all that braved the conditions and hopefully we will see better weather next year.
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