Tournaments

BASS AUSTRALIAN OPEN

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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.

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 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 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 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

Scan the QR code to watch the Runner-up Interview

After a 2nd place finish in 2021, Mick Was over the moon to get it done in 2022.

Mick Johnson

Tommy Wood Tom Slater

Matt Johnson Braden Schuch

Mark Reinbott Steve Morgan Jake Schwerin Steve Kanowski

9/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 13.270 kg $6000 12.403 kg $3000 12.207 kg $2000 10.670 kg $1000

10/10 10.064 kg

10/10 8.870kg

to finish the session, which was all he needed to take back the lead after an epic battle with the young gun. SUNDAY BIG BASS PRIZE

Mitch Petty from the naming sponsor Rapala won Sunday’s big bass prize with the biggest bass for the weekend at 52cm and 2.842kg. He, too, won a 13 Fishing Omen Black rod and 13 Fishing Concept baitcast reel.

TOMMY WOOD - 2ND PLACE 10/10 FISH FOR 12.403KG

Feared among barra anglers for his skills with a jerkbait, Tommy Wood

perfectly translated the same skills into the bass world for a second place in his first event as a boater.

Of course, the jerkbait is only one half of the skill set, and in the modern tournament landscape utilising your electronics to their maximum capabilities is pivotal to success.

Tommy knows this all too well, and as a supplier of Garmin electronics, he knows how to get the most out of his 8416 Garmin Livescope set-up to catch more fish.

“With the new LVS34 Transducer in forward mode I was seeing bass clear as day following my jerkbait from over 50ft away in as shallow as 2ft of water,” he said. “They would only eat it if there was a pack of them fighting for the lure, and I had to watch to make sure I didn’t pull it away from them too fast or they would spook. It’s pretty much exactly how I fish for barra.”

With his 7ft, 4-8 lb Samaki C12/Shimano Vanford combo, the key was to cast his jerkbait – a Jackall Squirrel 67 in purple gill - up as shallow as possible around the grassy edges and give it a twitch and pause retrieve back to the boat, watching the lure and any fish following on the sounder. A combination of 16lb Olltolos Zone Finesse braid and 8lb fluorocarbon leader was enough to stop all his fish without any breakages.

Having found the same fish in the same area as Mick Johnson, the pair were neck-and-neck heading into a very different day two, where the jerkbait bite almost completely disappeared and Tommy was able to snatch the lead back going into the blackout period.

Adaptability is the cornerstone to tournament success, so when the jerkbait bite died on day two Tommy picked up his second Samaki C12 combo, this time a 6-12lb model spooled with 16lb X-Braid Upgrade Pentagram braid rigged up with a 3/8oz Evergreen Little Max blade. He chose the blade due to its subtlety in comparison to

the lipless crankbaits that a lot of the field were using. This allowed him to fish water where anglers had already been through with lipless cranks, and still catch fish.

He rigged his blade with double hooks facing backwards so he could slow roll the blade over rock like a lipless crankbait, deflecting off structure without getting snagged like a treble hook would.

Tommy Wood has already won from the back of the boat, and he makes up one half of the 2021 Barra Tour Team of The Year so we’re very sure this is only the beginning of an illustrious career as a boater for him. Mick Johnson won this event after a 2nd place the year before, so who knows? Perhaps there is a pattern there and we’ll see Tommy atop the podium at this time next year.

Scan the QR code to watch the Day 1 Highlights

The winning set-ups Mick Johnson used to whack ‘em all weekend.

Matt Johnson took advantage of the edge bite on jerk baits and lipless crank baits Sunday’s Big Bass prize of a 13 Fishing baitcast combo went to Mitch Petty with the biggest bass weighed for the whole event at 51cm and 2.8kg! It ate a Rapala DT08 in smash colour on a shallow edge.

Scan the QR code to watch the Day 2 Highlights

BASS AUSTRALIAN OPEN

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