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Hi Charles,

I have attached a picture of part of the catch on the first day that the bream turned up at Jumpinpin on Sunday 27th May 2007

My friend and I had been down there in the boat waiting for two weeks for the first bream to show up. Two days after he left the bream arrived. Therefore I could not get a photograph with one of us with the fish.

The photo shows an 18kg Jewfish (Mulloway) and the bulk of the bream catch - another dozen or so were still alive in a bag over the side of the boat. The total one day score was 1 Jew and 47 bream. The PVC pipe is the weighted berley cage into which is loaded one of your Tuna Slabs.

The Tuna Slabs last just over 36 hours which is an excellent result for fast flowing water in that channel.
Other boats around me at the time were catching the odd bream now and then. I think the bulk of the bream were hanging around the Tuna Slab Berley right at the stern of my boat.
Using the Tuna Slabs as berley I do not have to cast and just drop the hook right behind or near the berley cage.

The score for the day would have been higher but I was trying out a couple of different types of hooks. One type was quite deadly but proved to be too weak - three hooks were straightened out on large bream. That proves that the berley attracts all sizes not just small fish.

On Tuesday 12 June I will be back at Jumpinpin for three weeks and should have a couple of visitors drop in. I will try to get a photograph of myself or them with a decent haul of bream.

Naturally, I can hardly wait for the next few days to pass - I am keen to get back among the bream and Jew. In an attempt at a record catch I will fish with barb less hooks which should allow for a higher score. Fishing barb less allows for the hook to slide out and saves wrestling with each fish caught to extract the hook.
My reputation as an angler has leapt to great heights but I know that it is a result, not of skill but of using Tuna Slabs as berley.

Thank you again for supplying me with the Tuna Slabs. They are pure magic.

Regards,
Frank Richardson

Hi Charles,

Thanks for your suggestion of keeping the average size bream and releasing the larger breeders. After phoning my brother on mobile (he is still on the boat and fishing) we agreed to put your suggestion into practice. We were, I think, just a bit excited about catching quality as well as quantity once again and got a little carried away with the performance of the Tuna Slabs. You are right - the large breeders should be released.

This report is sketchy and I have only two photographs to back it up. My camera was damaged shortly after taking the attached photographs and it has not yet been replaced. I was in too much of a rush to get back to fishing to bother with buying another camera.

The Bull shark was caught using live bait which had been attracted to the boat by your Tuna Slabs. The bait was meant for Jew but the channel was full of sharks that night. The one in the photograph was 178cm long and weighed about 90kg. After mangling a strong gaff it only came on board with the assistance of a rope noose.

It was released after measuring and photographing and swam away as though nothing had happened. Perhaps it should not have been released - they do love to bite tourists in this area but hey, what the hell, they are mostly Victorians anyway.

That fishing trip ended on Monday 2nd July 2007 with a total score of 277 bream, 1 shark and 1 flathead (as you can see in the photograph, the flathead was a monster and rare to be caught at this time of year). Not bad for five nights of fishing. After those five nights the westerly wind came in and took the bream right off the bite. Many other boats in the area had exactly the same problem and could not catch anything either.

The last outing of one week, ending on Thursday 26th July, gave a score of 133 bream, and considering that one some days I didn't fish and for the remainder was just loafing along, was an impressive demonstration of the effectiveness of using Tuna Slabs as berley.

The following is an extract from a 'post' that I made on the Ausfish site in response to a question from a bloke using the 'handle', "Gunna". My name for that site is Tiger Mullet (TM)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by gunna View Post Good Report TM. Just curious about the berley. Its many many many years since I fished there but from memory the current ran like blazes. How do you manage to berley when its like that ?? And do you simply anchor the line with a very large sinker ? Or not fish when it runs that hard.

Well, Gunna, I was going to keep it a secret but here goes. The berley that I use comes from West Australia and was supplied by www.sampi.com.au. It is a long story of how I discovered it but after talking to Charles, who is the general manager I think, they agreed to sell me a non commercial supply of 40kg of their Tuna Slabs. Normally they only sell in commercial quantities - one pallet costing about $4000. Mine cost $300 which included freight and GST. Each slab weighs about 150grams and lasts, as berley, for more than 24hours. It is a very slow release and was designed as crayfish bait for the Cray industry. The slabs are made of the leftover bits of Tuna processing and do not need refrigeration. As near as I can work out I have enough to last for about four years. They work like magic - no fuss and if held in a berley cage, made from PVC, which is dropped to the bottom they just keep on working. On the smaller tides the bream will bite all the way through but especially on the ebb tide. On the bigger runs it seems that the normal theory applies - it is okay for the first two hours, not good for the middle two, average for the last two hours. At the top you are, of course, plagued by butter bream. The first couple of hours on the ebb are quite good, average or poor on the next two hours and generally really good for the last couple. A lot of the reason for success is, I think, the very slow release. Only very small particles are released and a tiny amount of tuna oil. In the past I have found that the addition of tuna oil to berley has sent the fish chasing the smell of tuna oil up current. I do use a heavy sinker in Tiger Mullet - much heavier than one would normally expect. Coupled with a trace of over 1 metre it is very deadly. I have also learnt not to interfere with the rod/reel combination and catch more by casting or dropping close to the berley and locking up the reel. It rarely misses. Of course when the bream are really on the bite you do have to hang onto the rod - each pickup is so quick that there is little time to bother with putting the rod in the holder. Combine that with barb less hooks, keep the pressure on and you can guarantee a huge haul - if that is what you want. The berley works on a variety of fish and it is possible to catch, right behind the berley pipe, whiting, flathead and sole (or flounder - I always get the two mixed up). It also seems to attract and hold hardy heads very close to the boat. Good for an easy bait net cast. For gar it is just outstanding. I have always advocated using berley and, over the years, have tried several things. My favourite was boiled wheat but these Tuna Slabs are like nothing else that I have ever seen.

That concludes this brief report, Charles. I won't be able to get back to the boat unitl 14th August and, with a friend, will stay for two weeks. The bream should still be there but it will be the very end of the season. However, the flathead should be arriving by then as well as the sand crabs. We will try your Tuna Slabs as crab bait. It was not worth the effort to try to catch sand crabs on the last trip - there were hundreds around but they were small juveniles.

Regards,
Frank Richardson.            30 July 2007

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for the supply of S.A.M.P.I fish burly for me to use in this year RBAFC competition. First of all The $50,000 tagged bream was not caught on the weekend so is still out their somewhere or has been eaten by something bigger.

This was the first time I have fished the water at redland bay area so I was reliant on following my friends out and anchoring up near them. That was also a blessing as I could then see the difference between your burly with me and the others just fishing.

We went out all night the first night in a cold but still night with rain and strong winds forecast for the next day, We anchoring up over a small reef and started fishing, I placed your burly just under the boat on a small run of water, after about 30min the fish come on and boy did they turn up. I was catching as soon as the bait hit the bottom and was catching snapper like no tomorrow including bream and gummy sharks, being a fishing comp I released all except one for breakfast but was catching at least 30 fish to the other boats 1 fish.

After a while the other boats decided to move to try a new spot as the fishing to them was not any good (it was on my boat) so with the fish getting bigger as you put on a bigger bait and cast out to the rear a little further we pulled anchor and followed them to a new spot.

At the new spot the same thing happened again we were catching fish and my friends only got an eel for the nights work, the toll at the new spot was even better then the last we even just missed out on third prize for tailer with a 1.523kg from the bottom over mud and reef, myself being a western australian have only caught tailer in the surf at perth or with poppers on the surface.

The next day was a blower keeping all but the brave out of the water with 30-50knt winds, we went out and that was the time I got my biggest snapper but it was to roughed to get out of the bar and into open sea but we still got snapped off by some big monsters that come for a look.

After a couple of more night time fishing trips with the same results every time the locals started asking about this magic burly I had on board they where even checking the boat and rods to see why I was catching so much. We used live poddy mullet, W.A Pilchards, prawns and sand yabbies as bait but the best results was on pilchards.

After the long weekend I just wish I had some more S.A.M.P.I to use in my local area fishing to see the results, the product is that good that I will give up my next RBAFC comp to man a store to push your product in the display area (photos enclosed of the area) this is the best burly by far that I have ever used or even made in my life time of fishing in 30 years.

Regards Meegan Pedler. June 2008