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Time to get Mu-ving

Damiki Craft make a splash
Words and Photos by Craig Matthews

In a highly competitive lure market a new comer is starting to make some waves.

I have used all sorts of hard bodied lures, a quick scan of my tackle boxes will testify to that, but until now I have never had as much success with a single lure.

From chasing Bream on a social level, to the recent Vic Bream Classic on the Glenelg River in Nelson to stalking Redfin and Trout in Victoria's reservoirs and lakes the Damiki Mu-SP is in its element.

My first time I fished the Mu-SP was in Regional Victoria just outside Ballarat. I needed to catch a fish on a Damiki lure to win an online comp, its funny how things happen, who would've thought that would lead to an article being written. I was fishing plastics all day, catching a few small redfin so it was as good a time as any to try out the Mu-SP. First cast, was pleasantly surprised how far these things cast. Second cast saw a redfin jump on. Ok these lure work, I thought.Not a big fish, but a fish none the less. This then got me quite interested, so I kept on fishing the Mu-SP. Pulled a few more redfin and dropped a good rainbow trout too. My first time with the Damiki Mu-SP and I was rather impressed.

Now the trick was to get a Bream on one. I went to one of my spots on the Maribyrnong River in metropolitan Melbourne that had been providing some good fishing, fish to 36cm right up on the banks. This would be as good a place as any to pick up a bream on the Mu-SP. It wasn't long until I had a good little bream up on the banks with the Black Gold Holo Mu-SP hanging from its mouth.

Ok job done, a bream on a new lure, time to hit some more redfin.

With a few more redfin under my belt I was gaining more and more confidence. Each session taught me a new way to fish these lures, slowly refining the technique for each species.

I modified one and turned it into a surface lure, and even that caught fish. The first outing pulled a few redfin, dropped another trout and looked great on the surface. It has a perfect walk the dog action or can be ripped under as a great little jerk bait.

On another lake a Blackfish took a liking to the surface version and hit it hard during the day.

With the Vic Bream Classic Glenelg River round fast approaching the decision was made to fish with most of the Damiki range of lures. I approached Robert Searing of Searing Tackle to see when the new Saemihard bodied lures would be available in stores for purchase but was informed that wouldn't be until June. I had heard some good reports of these lures under testing stage and had hoped they would be available.

Instead of just leaving it at that, Robert Searing decided to send me a few of the samples that he had. Five were the new Saemi 50Sp and one was the larger Saemi 70Sp.

Well off to the Vic Bream Classic Glenelg Round we went, armed with a tackle box full of Damiki Lures including the Mu-SP, Mu-45, Saemi 50SP, Saemi 70Sp, Vault 35 and WOW , D and F Grubs

We had quite an eventful weekend. A lot of good fish were located from a few spots on pre-fish. All the models of Damiki lures I tried caught fish; the Mu-SP was the standout in the morning up on the flats, the best colours being the Black Gold Holo and the Phantom. The Vault, in Ayu and Holo Green Iwashi, got smacked by bream in all sizes in the deep water around the bridge along with the D grub in Gold Mix Flake and the Saemi 50Sp made a good account for itself along the drop offs.

Day 1 - (I forgot my camera back at the house) The Black Gold Holo Mu-SP had a fish in the live well in the first 15 minutes but I retired it straight away as I had a damaged leader. Out went the Mu-SP in Phantom and did it go off!!!!! It pulled quite a few fish and put 3 more in the well, going 34, 33 and 29cm. So that was four in the well and only 8am.

We moved to another spot and my team mate, Nick, put a fish in the live well so we backed off the flats and headed into the deeper drop offs. I started flicking the larger Saemi 70Sp; it was time for an upgrade after all. First cast for both of us at this spot and we had a double hook up, Nick's was a 29cm and the Saemi 70Sp pulled a 32cm upgrade.

Now that we had upgraded we moved again to a school we had found during pre-fish and continued to pull fish.

All up we pulled over 50 fish for the day, 15 going size or better including 6 upgrades. This cracking day had us weigh in at 3.04kg and in third position but equal second on weight. The largest bag was 3.18kg so we were right up there.

Unfortunately we couldn't back up our great first day. The Damiki Mu phantom put two in the well that were just legal but that got knocked back to one come weigh in, he had shrunk by 4mm, he was in the well all day. We still caught fish but they were simply under size, and only just.

I am really impressed in the way these lures performed over the weekend.

We ended up falling from 3rd to 28th for the classic but still retain our 10th place overall in the Team of the Year rankings.

Can't wait for the Vic Bream Classics Grand Final in Metung now, October can't come quick enough. Just spewing I didn't have these lures for the Dockland round as

I am sure they would've been a great help with finishing higher than our fifth placing.

Vic Bream Grand Final

Vic Bream Classic Grand Final

The 2009 Vic Bream Classics has been run and won, and didn’t the series conclude in style.

Forty Eight of the best bream fishing teams converged in Metung on the picturesque Gippsland Lakes for what was to be a sensational weekend of fishing.

The forecast for Friday’s pre-fish wasn’t looking too good but the winds died down, the rain cleared, and by midday the sun was shining. My team mate Nick and I, Team Urban Assault, were on the water fairly early trying to find a few patches of good sized bream. It wasn’t until midday that we located them, when headed back up the Tambo River to work on some schools we had noticed earlier. In the first 10 minutes we had boated over 2kg of Southern Black Bream and left it at that, we needed to find a few more spots just incase this one didn’t fire come crunch time.

With the pre-fish now over and the tactics all sorted it was onto the briefing and time for the meet and greet. Everyone was in a jovial mood and somewhat cagey, what would you expect it was the night before the biggest teams bream event in the state. It was great to catch up with a few familiar faces that I had met through the two Classics I fished previously this year and those I know from the Breammaster and Fishvictoria forums.

We woke pretty early and were launching by 6am for a 7am start. Keen, yeah just a bit, but we would rather be on the water than waiting in the queue to launch. Once 7 o’clock came around Bill, the tournament organizer, started proceedings. We had to wait until he called us to go in 36th position and off we went. Flying as fast as our Savage tinny could take us we headed to the Tambo River to the spot that had produced some good fish the day before. To our surprise, and dismay, at least half of the field was also there; obviously they had stumbled on the school as well.

We pulled in to our spot and got started; fifth cast in with my Vault 35 I nailed a 37cm fork length bream which was 41cm to the tip and just over 1kg. Once he was in the net and then in the live well I heard a reassuring ‘nice one boys’ from one of the pro teams in the event, we had drifted near them when trying to sort out our live well. Needless to say we were very relieved and it is my new PB to boot.

The comp was looking like it would turn into a vibe fest. Metal blades of all persuasions were being thrown left, right and centre. We kept on plugging away at the schooling bream and managed to fill the well with a full bag by 9am. A lot more fish were landed and lots were the legal size of 28cm to the fork. Nick landed a great upgrade around 11am which went 35cm to the fork and rounded out the bag. We decided to head up river in search of the elusive big bream but to no avail, it also doubled as a pre-fish for Day 2 and we had decided what our tactics were for the next day.

With the day coming to a close, and feeling comfortable that our bag would be around the 3.5kg mark and hoping for midfield or better result, we made our way back to weigh in. What we weren’t ready for was our bag weighed in at 3.68kg and helped us to 8th position, still a long way behind the leaders of 6.90kg but still in the top 10. Dinner and an early night were on the cards so we were in our best shape to back up our top 10 finish.

Once again we were up early, launched and waiting by 6am, and ready to tackle these schooling bream once again. The fish were coming on slowly but at a steady rate and once again we had a bag, this time by 10am. Heaps of bream were captured and we upgraded a few times but only adding a few hundred grams here and there. At 1:15pm we made our way back to Metung and to the weigh in, roughly estimating that our bag would be around the 3kg mark.

Once weighed in, at 3.02kg, our total 10 fish bag weight rounded out to a nice 6.70kg and the feeling was of a possible top 10 finish. Waiting around for the final result was difficult, but when tenth was read out at less than us we were excited. Still waiting for our names to be read out the suspense was getting too much. Then finally it was announced that we had taken out sixth, I couldn’t believe it, hand shakes all round, we went up to claim our prize pack. And the rest is history…especially the 11.4kg that took first place; there were some monster bream in that bag.

Now we are preparing for next years VicBream Classics season starting in February in Melbourne. We finished in 5th place at the Docks round this year and hope to back it up with another good result, its not that far away, bring on banks fishing…



By Craig Matthews