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Second time’s the charm for Mick Johnson If you had the pleasure of following the action at home via the LIVE scoreboard on the ABT tournament app or our social media, then you wouldn’t have missed the epic battle between 1st place Mick Johnson and 2nd place Tommy Wood that unfolded at the 2022 Rapala BASS Australian Open. The inaugural event this year took us to Somerset Dam in Southeast Queensland. Renowned across the country as one of the premier big bass dams, it lived up to its reputation as Mick Johnson brought almost 10kg to the scales on day one, throwing down the gauntlet and giving the rest of the field something to chase on day two. MICK JOHNSON – 1ST PLACE 9/10 FISH FOR 13.27KG A slip on the boat and
fish are homed in on jerkbaits. Mick fished the bottom of Bay 13 on day one, where he had a bank with a good variety of rock and weed to fish a jerkbait around. The areas he targeted were shallow, typically less than 6ft of water, and the fish seemed to come off any standing timber sticking out of the water about 12-15ft off the bank. Using his Garmin LiveScope, Mick was able to target the trees holding fish while skipping past the trees with no fish, to maximise his chances of a bite. Six of Mick’s seven fish on day one came on a Jackall Squirrel 67 in ghost minnow Scan the QR code to watch the Winner Interview
Biggun! This 51cm model at nearly 3kg secured Mick the Big Bass prize for Day 1 - a 13 Fishing Baitcast rod and reel combo. sitting a little deeper, so I threw the 79 Squirrel to get a bit deeper and straight away got my kicker fish,” Mick explained. That fish won Saturday’s Big Bass prize of a 13 Fishing Omen Black rod and 13 Fishing Concept baitcast reel. As the jerkbait bite died on day two, Mick was
overtaken on the scoreboard by Tommy Wood heading into the blackout period, and was struggling to find the Squirrelcrushing fish he was on the day before. Changing to a noike gill coloured Jackall TN60, Mick deflected his lipless crankbait over the gravel and rock with a slow roll to fill a 4/5 fish limit
Fish like this brute are what kept Tommy Wood right in the hunt after the first session. He was able to snatch back the lead heading into the blackout period, which made for an exciting reveal. a few sore ribs had Mick Retire hurt from his innings at Somerset two weeks prior, so you could say the dam owed him one. Well, it paid him back 6000 times over as the lake handed him a staggering day one bag of 9.857kg, his smallest fish being 42cm to the fork and his largest 51cm, which had him leading the event after the first session. In a pleasant change from the usual deep-water techniques that Somerset is known for, Mick found a consistent jerkbait bite on the edges of Bay 13 that he knew would be hard to beat. This theory was quickly re-assured on the second cast of the first session, when he landed a 48 fork fish to kick his bag off. “It’s not often you get a jerkbait bite in Somerset but when you do, they’re usually quality fish,” he said, adding that he was happy to beat a lot of fellow anglers who are usually hard to beat when the 102
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rigged on an ultralight 2-6lb Samurai Infinite, which Mick explained is crucial for lightly tapping the jerkbait and not imparting too much action. He paired this up with a 2004 size Daiwa Freams, spooled with 10lb Sunline braid and 10lb Sunline V-hard leader. “Sunline make great line, I don’t think I broke a line all weekend fishing around structure like weed and rocks,” Mick said. The 7th fish? Well, at a
Scan the QR code to watch the Runner-up Interview
stonking 51cm and 2.668kg, it fell to the 67 Squirrel’s big brother, the 79 Squirrel, in the same colour, only it came from deeper water than the rest of the bag. “I could see some really nice fish on the sounder
RESULTS Place 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Angler Mick Johnson Tommy Wood Tom Slater Matt Johnson Braden Schuch Mark Reinbott Steve Morgan Jake Schwerin Steve Kanowski Nick Anderson
After a 2nd place finish in 2021, Mick Was over the moon to get it done in 2022. Full results at abt.org.au
Fish 9/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 8/10 10/10 9/10 10/10
Weight(kg) 13.270 kg 12.403 kg 12.207 kg 10.670 kg 10.064 kg 8.870kg 8.676kg 8.614kg 8.549kg 8.513kg
Payout $6000 $3000 $2000 $1000
