The Long And Short Of It

Australia boasts some of the best fishing on the planet no doubt, it’s also some of the most varied anywhere i can think of. One part of the country might dictate a super light spin stick, yet a days drive in any direction could have you needing a heavy baitcaster, or perhaps a nice medium weight spin stick. It’s this incredible diversity that makes it a long process to bring a rod to market that covers each application.

The OMEN range needed a couple of nice light powered true Bream rods added to the lineup, and that’s what I’ve been working on these past 6 months. Designing and perfecting two models that will cover all of your bream fishing needs. Excellent all rounders was what we were after, and we are getting to the pointy end of the design process. Many prototypes have come and gone, they’ve been around the country twice and we are almost ready for approval.

The hard thing with Bream fishing is there are so many techniques to catch them, with so many different lures and even line types that you could almost fill your rod locker and not have two rods the same. With the OBS610L and OBS71L models, I wanted them both to be able to ‘do everything’  but not just be mediocre, but excel at being a great all round Bream rod!

I really think we have achieved what we set out to do with these rods, The OBS610L is an awesome rod, I personally favour this one for fishing soft plastics or heavier structure. The OBS71L is a little longer and a smidge softer, perfect for fishing tight line presentations, and what i mean by that is techniques which for the most part have constant tension on the line as your fishing. Like slow rolling a crankbait for example. I personally prefer to use a fluorocarbon line straight through for these techniques, but a braid does work as well.

Anyway, just thought i would keep you in the loop. They are well underway and should be approved soon. I’m just a perfectionist when it comes to my fishing tackle!

Part 2 coming soon!

So I’m in Tokyo now, Shibuya district to be exact. This is like shopping heaven. I’m sure if you wanted anything in the world. You could buy it here.

I happen to be very close to a number of fishing tackle shops which has provided some entertainment and lots of inspiration. I love trying new and wacky techniques and this is something which the Japanese seem so good at!

I’ve recently been fishing a place choked full of weed and catching good bream and bass on suspending jerkbaits sight fishing the clear patches of ground in-between the thick weed. But the problem is 90% of the time your lure will get weed on it and make the cast wasted and a lot of the time spook the fish in the process.

This is where my idea comes in. Now bear in mind I’m only using 40-50mm jerkbaits in these instances. About 12 months ago I bought some plastics (in Japan would you believe) called Sawamura One-Up Shads. They were little 2″ finesse paddle tails. At the time I thought they would be awesome
for bass fishing and I was right. They have caught me some great fish.

I wanted to try them weed less around these clear patches but had trouble finding suitable worm hooks locally that were small enough to fit the 2″ profile.

A small flight to Japan and sure enough there is heaps of suitable hooks here and below are just a small selection of some I’ve found.

I’ll delve more deeply into how I plan on using these paired up with the Sawamuras and those Reins slip sinkers when I return to Australia.

For those that haven’t heard about this i highly suggest checking it out.

It’s the latest and greatest in televised tournament fishing in the USA and the population is loving it!
24 of the best anglers head to head in a no limit catch-a-thon

Well worth the time if you like watching the yanks rip out bass from heavy cover!

http://www.majorleaguefishing.com