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2012 ABT Tournament guide
by Bradley 21st Dec 2011

The 2012 ABT Tournament guide is now available online or as a free download. Full of in-depth articles on how to make you a better tournament angler for the upcoming 2012 season.

Hard copies will be available in all good newsagencies or from Fishing Monthly from the middle of January.

For more information click here.


New Daiwa ABT and Hobie section
by Bradley 20th Dec 2011

The Daiwa BREAM Series and Daiwa-Hobie BREAM Kayak Series hits the water in January 2012 to kickstart another big year on the tournament trail. The new section on Daiwa’s website will have all the news from the Bream and Hobie events throughout the year.

For boaters the action starts on Sydney Harbour in early January with the Daiwa BREAM Australia, then heads to the Glenelg River in Victoria for the opening round of the eight event national BREAM Series.

For kayak anglers the action begins at Forster in early January with the 18 event series visiting Australia’s premier kayaking venues throughout the year on its journey to the Bemm River Grand Final in November.

For bream fishing fans the new tournament season will offer unrivaled event coverage, with the Daiwa livestream, ABT reporting and coverage on daiwafishing.com.au, hobiefishing.com.au and lureandfly.com delivering action direct to their computer or smartphone.

For more information click here.


Join Us on Facebook
by Bradley 21st Nov 2011

Join us a on Facebook and get the latest gear updates, fishing news, greatest links plus lots of giveaways! This week were giving away 5 copies of the latest “Fishing DVD” to five lucky Facebook fans.

Join us at Daiwa’s Facebook page


2012 Daiwa Hobie Kayak Bream Series
by Bradley 17th Nov 2011

Hobie Fishing is pleased to announce season number four of the Daiwa Hobie Kayak Bream Series!

For 2012 we have added a few new rounds and the series will visit some new arenas, to test Australia’s leading bream kayak experts, in the chase for the Lowrance Kayak Angler of the Year.

The profile of the sport of kayak fishing will be enhanced by teaming up with Australia’s leading bream power boat tournaments. This will add to the excitement and bring kayak fishing to the next level.

We have teamed up with the Gamakatsu Teams Series for the North Coast Fishing Bonanza in Ballina (NSW) and three other rounds in Forster (NSW), the Clarence (NSW) and Tweed Rivers (NSW).  Squidgie Southern Bream Series will host three rounds, the Georges River (NSW), St Georges Basin (NSW) and Mallacoota (Vic). ABT will host all other rounds of the series including the Forster Fishing Carnival (NSW), Glenelg (SA), Swan River (WA), Marlo (Vic), Swan River (Tas), Mandurah (WA), Bribie Island (Qld), Mallacoota (Vic) and Narrabeen Lake (NSW)

The series will also see the launch of qualifying rounds for the 2nd Hobie Kayak Fishing Worlds to be held in the USA.

“The inaugural Daiwa Hobie World Kayak Fishing Championships set the tone in 2011. Now, 2012 offers kayakers even more opportunity to get involved. There are AFC spots, World Championship slots and plenty of cash and prizes to be earned this season and now is a better time than ever to start competing”, Steve Morgan ABT Director.

“If you thought 2011 was impressive then kayak season 2012 will blow your mind. More events, more venues, more options and greater exposure are combining to drive kayak breaming to the forefront of the sports fishing industry. I, like many on the kayaking scene can’t wait for the new season to start. It’s going to be an exciting year”, Simon Goldsmith ABT Tournament Director.

“Thanks to Hobie, placegetters in three of the 2012 Squidgie Southern Bream Series (SSBS) rounds will qualify for Daiwa Hobie Kayak Bream Series, grand final spots. Another incredible innovation is that one round will give anglers the opportunity, to qualify, to compete in the Hobie Kayak Fishing World Championships in the USA. In 2012 kayak anglers will have much more on offer than ever before”, said Jim Barrie (SSBS) Director.

“Gamakatsu Teams Series is very excited to be involved in the 2012 Hobie Kayak Bream Series. Weigh-ins will become a better spectacle and the bar for both kayak and power boat anglers will be raised. Our involvement will increase the exposure of kayak fishing. For anglers wanting to get into competitive fishing, but can’t find another team member to fish power boats, kayaks present an economical way for individuals to participate in tournaments around the country. Great prizes and places in the Hobie Kayak Bream Series Grand Final are another fantastic drawcard,” Michael Starkey Director Frogleys Offshore 2012, new venues, new rules and perhaps a new winner!

The 2012 Daiwa Hobie Kayak Bream Series is supported by Daiwa Australia, Berkley/Pure Fishing Australia, Atomic Lures/Frogleys Offshore, Hogs Breath Café, ABT, Lowrance, Squidgies/Shimano Australia.


DAIWA – Hobie World Kayak Fishing Tournament
by Bradley 3rd Nov 2011

The inaugural DAIWA – Hobie World Kayak Fishing Tournament has been run and won at the weekend in Port Macquarie.  Contested by anglers from Australia, USA, Thailand, Singapore and South Korea, competitors were faced with the challenge of bringing a daily bag of their three largest bream to the weigh master over three days of competition.

Given that ten of the eighteen competitors were Internationals, and had never seen, let alone caught a bream before, it’s surprising that the final results were never a certainty.

Ultimately, the Aussies prevailed and took out the top three places, but not before a spirited challenge from USA angler, Jose Chavez, who led the event after the first day, before settling with a fourth place finish.  International Competitors would eventually claim five of the top ten places.

Based on the format of the Hobie sailing world championships, these championships allowed competitors to fly in to the event location, where they were provided with a, tournament ready, pedal powered Hobie MirageDrive® Pro Angler.

The thing that struck me most is the versatility shown by the Internationals.  Fishing a foreign waterway in a foreign country, for a foreign species, these anglers adapted superbly to the challenge.  Mentored by the Australians for 2 days prior to the event, there was a great sense of sharing, of both knowledge and skills.

I interviewed Jose Chavez (USA) and talked to him about adapting to this foreign adversary.  Interestingly, after only 3 days on the water, he’d pretty well summed up the situation, and had a very good understanding of this species.

In relating to the bream, he credits the knowledge shared by his Australian Mentor, three time Angler of the Year, and Hobie Fishing Pro Greg Lewis. Jose describes the Bream as “a little smart bulldog… you don’t think they’re as powerful as they are, but those things can fight”.

Besides that though, it was quickly evident that Jose is an accomplished angler in his own right.  He has a sound understanding of locating fish, and how they relate to structure, tides, wind and current.

The biggest challenge he faced was adjusting to the lighter equipment required to fish for this species.  Casting lighter line and light lures affected his casting accuracy, and it took him several days to adapt. And adapt he did.  His first day bag from the Camden Haven River was the largest of any angler in the tournament.  Once he’d located the fish, using a topwater lure as a search bait, Jose quickly “switchbaited” the fish with a lightly weighted soft plastic, a technique he uses at home on Bass and Redfish. The second day on the Hastings River at port Macquarie was disappointing, after he lost a number of good fish in the oyster racks, but he was still in contention for an upset win, sitting in 3rd place.  Jose made some slight adjustments to his technique for the last day, which secured him a fourth place finish.

Scott Baker from Mornington Victoria was eventually crowned World Champion, but all the competitors were quick to relate the positive experiences from the event, and look forward to the return match in the US in 2012.

For full results, visit http://www.hobiefishingworlds.com

For photo galleries of the event, check out http://www.lureandfly.com and http://www.hobiefishingworlds.com


1ST Daiwa Hobie® Kayak World Championships
by Bradley 10th Oct 2011

Hobie Cat Australasia in conjunction with Daiwa Australia, announce that eighteen competitors from five nations, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, USA and Australia, will compete in the inaugural Hobie world kayak fishing championships.  The tournament will be held in Australia, on the New South Wales mid north coast, starting on October 27 at Camden Haven on the Camden Haven River, moving to the Hastings River at Port Macquarie on October 29 and 30.

The event is the concept of Steve Fields, General Manager of Hobie Cat Australasia.  Steve is a former sailing world and national champion in multiple Hobie Cat Catamaran classes.

Steve Fields, stated, “Hobie Cat has been hosting Hobie sailing world championships since the first Hobie 16 titles held in Hawaii in 1976. They are fantastically competitive and ruthless events on the water but they are great social occasions as well”.

“People from all over the world with similar interests not only compete but share expertise, knowledge and skills.  In the end, there is one World Champion, but everyone goes home feeling better about themselves, with new friends, new skills and having had a cultural experience in a part of the world they, otherwise, may never have visited.”

“Hobie Cat has grown and diversified into new areas since those early days.  Our venture into kayaks has built a huge, worldwide Hobie kayak fishing fraternity.  I wanted to bring these people together somehow and came up with the Hobie Kayak Fishing World Championships.  I put the concept to Daiwa Australia and they loved the idea so much they jumped straight aboard, as the major sponsor of the first such event ever to be held.”

Day one of the International competition will be a standalone event.  However, on the starting signal, at 7am on the weekend of October 29 – 30, the spectacular sight of 67 pedal powered Hobie MirageDrive® Pro Angler kayaks will leave the beach.  The world championship competitors will be joined on the water by grand finalists from the 13 rounds, held throughout Australia, of the Daiwa Hobie ABT Kayak Fishing Series.

Live weigh-ins of the catches will take place on the waterfront grassed area at the Water’s Edge Boutique Hotel, Buller Street Port Macquarie, from 2pm on each of the three days of the world championship competition.

For more information or photos please call Bob Findlay   Office: +61 2 4441 8400    Mobile:  0412 127 454   bob@hobiecat.com.au or keep up to date at www.hobiefishing.com.au and the event site at www.hobiefishingworlds.com