Past Hobie Fishing World Champions

Target Species – Yellow Fin Bream

The Yellow Fin Bream is one of Australia’s most important recreational and commercial fish species due to their ability to thrive in salt and fresh water environments. Over the years they have adapted to be versatile enough to feed on a large variety of estuarine food sources and cope with the introduction of human influence extremely well making them one of the most popular target species available throughout the Australia.

Yellow Fin Bream are one of the most widely distributed species in Australia and are located from the far south of WA near Kalbarri, throughout the northern Kimberley to the whole east coast of Australia. They are most prevalent in the estuarine systems of NSW and QLD.

These fish are an incredibly slow growing species, reaching maturity at around 15 – 20cm in length and 2 – 3 years of age. They possess immature ovaries and testes at this early stage and not until the bream’s first spawn will it decide whether it wants to be a female or a male. Spawning takes place between November to January throughout Australia with water temperature, salinity, availability of food and appropriate habitat all playing a major role in the spawning success of the species. Reaching maximum recorded lengths of 65cm and 4kg in weight although most encountered specimens average around 800 grams with anything over a kilo regarded as being a quality fish.

Yellow Fin Bream prefer most estuary habitats and inshore waters from shallow sandy and muddy bays to deeper channels and areas with both natural and man-made structures. Wharves, piers, pylons, drains, rock walls and jetties are always a great place to find bream as they shelter from predators and feed on a wide variety of food sources.

THE HOBIE® FISHING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP STORY

Hobie has hosted sailing world championships since the first Hobie 16 titles in Hawai’i in 1976. These championships have always been fantastically competitive and ruthless events on the water, but they have also been great social occasions.

From those early days Hobie has grown and diversified into new areas. The company’s venture into kayaks has built a huge, worldwide kayak fishing fraternity and there was a dream to bring these people together. With the proven success of the sailing world championships in mind the first Hobie Fishing World Championship was created in 2011.

“I put the concept to Daiwa Australia and they loved it so much they jumped straight on board, as the major sponsor of the first world championship”, said Steve Fields, managing director of Hobie Asia Pacific who conceived the idea.

His concept carried over other ideas from the Hobie 16 sailing world championships where all sailors are placed on an even keel, by sailing in identical, completely new boats, built and supplied specifically for the event. The difficulty and expense for a competitor, of freighting a boat to an international venue had been taken care of by the event organiser and all boats would be exactly, the same. Like the sailing concept, all anglers in the fishing worlds would be supplied with exactly, the same kayak, a Hobie Mirage® Pro Angler 14 rigged out in the Hobie Asia Pacific factory with quality accessories straight out of the packet.