BASS SERIES presented by
Johnson claims maiden BASS Pro win at Blue Rock Victoria’s Blue Rock Dam has been a happy hunting ground for Queenslanders since ABT started visiting this Victorian empowerment in 2021. After a COVID cancellation in the first year, Matthew Langford won the first full event there and this year fellow Queenslander Mick Johnson took his first ABT BASS Pro qualifier title.
“I had two patterns going – early fish on topwater around the edges and fish later on in the submerged trees. On day one I got distracted after catching the limit on the edge, but day two I got back on track and stuck to the game plan. That’s when the bigger fish bit,” Mick said. The day two limit catapulted him into first place. Scan the QR code to watch the NonBoater Winners Interview
Scan the QR code to watch the Boater Winners Interview
Blue Rock is undoubtedly a beautiful lake. It is stocked with plenty of bass by Victorian Fisheries and offers most competitors a fairly easy limit. The challenge in blue Rock has always been finding fish over 30cm. Run on the ABT tournament series app, the event offers live scoreboards
Mick Johnson, one of the newest additions to the Rapala Pro Angler team, rose to the challenge at Lake Blue Rock and worked out how to get the lake’s bigger bass to bite.
“There are a lot more big fish in this lake than most people realise,” Johnson said. He targeted these fish on deeper, submerged trees – usually ones that were in around 70ft of water with their crowns around 20-25ft under the surface. “Garmin LiveScope makes these areas much
Targeting suspending fish in the treetops, like this one, saw Mitchell Cone take the day one lead. and the ability to record any size bass, since they are measured and released at the point of capture. Indeed, the live scoreboards are a hit with spectators who can keep an eye on how their favourite
competitors are faring during the tournament day. Lengths are converted to estimated weights via ABT’s length weight curve, therefore five fish limits are possible.
BOATER RESULTS Place 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 114 APRIL 2023
Angler Mick Johnson Mitchell Cone Steve Muldoon Matthew Langford Collin Robinson Braden Schuch Corey Goldie Tom Deer Declan Betts Steve Duff
Fish 10/10 8/10 8/10 10/10 9/10 9/10 10/10 9/10 7/10 8/10
Johnson weighed an average, sub 2kg limit on day one but found bigger fish on the second day to rocket into the lead and win quite emphatically, over 1.5kg ahead of Mitchell Cone.
New South Wales’ Tim Jones secured his first win from the back of the boat topping up his Rapala Prize Pack with the $500 X-Braid Big Bass cash prize and the first place Rapala Non Boater Bonus.
Full results at abt.org.au
Weight(kg) 7.624 5.921 5.387 4.975 4.849 4.431 3.950 3.412 2.980 2.921
Payout $2,600 + $250 Merc bonus $1,250 $900 $600 + $125 Merc bonus + $75 Merc bonus
easier to fish than they used to be. You can see the trees and you can see that there are fish in them,” he continued. Johnson used a 7’, 1-2kg Rapala Maxwell rod and 4lb Sufix 131 braid paired with 4lb Sufix leader to present a 1/8oz jighead and cut down soft plastic single tail to the fish suspended in the treetops and sunk or rolled the bait back as slowly as possible. “There was a real strike zone where the lure left the
