In a boost to local tourism Hobie fever hits Mallacoota on the weekend, when 100 of the best kayak anglers in the country transcend into the coastal hamlet for round seven of series 15 of the iconic kayak fishing.
Anglers will hit the water on Saturday and Sunday in search of one of areas world famous bream, hoping to land several and the event’s first prize.
The Mallacoota event is always one of the most popular in the series, with Australia’s best anglers keen to tackle the bream in the sensational Mallacoota estuaries.
Mallacoota Inlet is renowned as a fishing paradise, with the bream and flathead fishing inside the inlet unmatched.
Among the plethora of excellent estuaries in the East Gippsland region, Mallacoota sits clearly at the top of the list in terms of fish quality and quantity.
Bream are the most sought-after species in the lake and the target fish of the Hobie competition, regularly weighing over a kilogram.
The Hobie event format is unique, being a kayak only event, with both days of fishing in specified time slots, with the tournament event cast and retrieve, lure and fly only.
All anglers return to the weigh-in area, with their heaviest bag of live and legal fish (three per day).
The event winner is determined by the highest combined total over the two days, with all fish released back into the water after weigh-in.
The last time an event was held in
Mallacoota was in November last year, the 2023 Hobie Fishing Series 14 Australian Championship, was taken out by Lakes Entrance bream fishing master, Steven Pryke, who conquered 56 of the country’s best anglers in difficult conditions to fulfil a life long dream.
Pryke emerged victorious with his nine bream haul for the three-day event, weighing in at 8.05 kilograms (kgs), 0.72kg more than Queensland’s Tyson Hayes and Bega’s Ben Hanscombe.
Pryke comes into the event in top form, after finishing second in the Vicbream Classic event at Marlo last weekend with dad, Lindsay, who will be an opponent this week.
Pryke again looms as the angler to beat, most likely fishing with a combination of cranks and top waters, consisted of sugar pens and bent minnows, which he works through the Mallacoota flats.
The event has again attracted a huge field and the winner is always hard to pick, but you can be assured Mallacoota won’t disappoint, as the fishing is always magnificent in the tranquil surrounds in Gippsland’s far east.
