Tournaments

Wyaralong Dam Carp and Tilapia Eradication

It was a fantastic day at the Wyaralong Dam Carp and Tilapia Eradication competition. There were the lucky door prizes.

A massive shout out to all our sponsors support and volunteers that helped out on

280 competitors with a large number of families and kids. It is great to see so many kids getting amongst the action by fishing, catching and learning about pest fish.

There were a huge number of fish caught with 1,174 noxious fish being removed; 244 carp and 930 tilapia. The biggest tilapia weighing 2.855kg, and the carp went 4.305kg.

It was great to have Tim Lucas from Fisheries Queensland Freshwater division do a presentation on noxious fish and teaching everyone easy ways to identify pest fish. Charlie from FFSAQ was also there with the education live fish trailer, and Fisheries patrol officers Paul and Bob talked to people about freshwater fishing rules. The Greenbank scouts group came out for a fish, which helped them towards their sustainability badge. They also gave assistance with drawing

RESULTS ENTRANTS

JUNIOR 76 TEEN 22 SENIOR (inc FLY) 182 TOTAL 280

FISH CAUGHT

CARP 244 TILAPIA 930 TOTAL 1,174

JUNIOR

Most carp Maxim Baruksopulo 2-TIE Cooper Jackson Biggest carp Archie Cook 2.935kg Most tilapia Aston Holland 42 Biggest tilapia Joshua Buys 2.15kg

TEEN

Most carp Cooper Rennick 4 Biggest carp Kayos Hapeta-Williams 3.29kg Most tilapia Kayos Hapeta-Williams 39 Biggest tilapia Garrett Stanton 2.855kg

FLY

Most carp Peter Herbst 6 Biggest carp Peter Herbst 2.065kg Most tilapia NIL Biggest tilapia NIL

SENIOR

Most carp Tiger Zhang 58 Biggest carp Ji Chunhud 4.305kg Most tilapia Jason Williams 118 Biggest tilapia Jason Terelinck 2.66kg

the day, without this help the competition can’t be run.

All profits raised go back into purchasing native fingerlings to re-stock Mary River cod and Australian bass fingerlings in Wyaralong Dam and Logan and Albert catchments.

Here is to a successful competition in 2023. – John Cumberland

Charlton’s Springfield Lakes Pest Classic 2022

After a successful return, all be it with reduced numbers in 2021, it was no surprise that the Charlton’s Fishing Springfield Lakes Pest Fishing Classic took less than a week to fill its quota of 200 anglers.

The event offers anglers of all ages the opportunity to fish an urban waterway, which is normally closed to fishing, for a day in an effort to reduce the number of evasive species in the waterway and then through donations, stock the waterway with native fish. In 2022 it was Mary River cod that were stocked, however in the past it has been a mix of them and Australian bass.

The day is a great mix of education (children and adults alike learning what our evasive species are and look like), family fun and a showcase of what our urban waterways could/can offer. It was great to see anglers finding their little

Aaron Czerner and Kobie Hill had a ball and said they will definitely be back next year.

piece of water to fish and then everybody jumping in to help whether it was to net a larger fish, offer a little advice if the fish weren’t cooperating or at the end of the day jumping in and cleaning up to ensure the area was left cleaner than they found it. It is a great community event, with many hoping that more can be organised.

The end result of the day was plenty of anglers leaving the waterway with a prize for their efforts, and the prize for the waterway was that 160kg+ plus of evasive species had been removed from it. This was a mix of tilapia, barred grunter (not endemic to SE Queensland) and a single European carp.

Another positive was the tagging by the Brisbane Valley Anglers Stocking Group (BVA) and Suntag of 220 Australian bass (all 20cm or bigger). This will assist with data over the years to show growth rates and survival of the native fished stocked in the lake.

There are many groups, people and businesses that made this day possible and we Anglers arrived early to secure their little piece of water to fish and to enjoy everything the Charlton’s Pest Fishing Classic offers

would like to say thank you. They are Charlton’s Fishing, Shrimplovers, Ipswich City Council, Lend Lease, 2 Bent Rods (for running the day), Springfield Scout group, Ipswich cadets parent support group, BVA, Fishing Monthly, Camprite, Wilson Fishing, Rapala Australia and Tackle Tactics. We would also like to thank Charis Mullen MP, Nicole Jonic – Ipswich City Council and Russell Milligan – Ipswich City Council for supporting and attending on the day.

The Charlton’s Fishing Springfield Lakes Pest Fishing Classic will be back again next year, with another one of the lakes open for fishing, so put the first Sunday in December into your diaries to attend the 2023 event. – Peter Jung (BVA)

BARRA SERIES 2022 abt

Striking with Venom

Kicking off the back half of the season at the Mackay impoundments, the ABT travelled to Teemburra Dam in the Mackay hinterland for the third stop of the tour, brought to you by Sufix lines.

Having the whole top end of the dam virtually to themselves, Adam Meredith and Troy Dixon of team Venom had the luxury of being able to fish their way around likely areas before dark without encroaching on other teams’ spots and vice versa.

“We only saw one other boat all night and that started to fire up on the larger flat shads. The fish came into the boat consistently until about 10pm when the bite window closed.

Scan the QR code to see the Winning team interview

The flat shads they used were tricked up with a custom-made jighead built on an 8/0 Mustad or 10/0 SL12 hook from Dan Stead at Pimp My Lure – an upgrade jighead that has been very popular 3 Venom braid and Wilson fluorocarbon leader.

All up, they finished with around 10 fish in total for the night and enough upgrades to edge ahead of Anita Barra/ Humminbird by just over 2kg.

THE KINGS OF

CONSISTENCY

In second place, falling an agonising 1.8kg shy of 3/3 wins to start the season was the always consistent team of Liam Robinson and James Wilson, aka Team Anita Barra/Humminbird.

It doesn’t seem to matter which impoundment they are on, the pair will always sniff out a ZEREK Fish Trap bite.

Always consistent, Anita Barra / Humminbird took another podium finish at Teemburra. Troy Dixon with one of the Teemburra barra that anchored their winning limit.

“I know it probably seems a bit boring that we do the same thing a lot but there’s a reason we do, it just flat out works,” said Robinson.

And the proof is in the pudding, the pair caught over a dozen barra for the session with three of their biggest models all measuring a cracking 103cm.

They got their fish by positioning the boat in 10ft of water and casting into a little drop off to about 15ft. Two sharp double hops got the fish fired up.

The best part? They got to do it fishing their very own ‘Anita’ coloured Fish Trap model, which has been so productive already this season.

“At about 9:30 we got one of the hottest bites I’ve ever had with 5 fish in 5 casts, it was awesome!” said Robinson. He adding their lures often, “Wouldn’t even make it to the bottom” before getting eaten.

Second place together with their two wins puts them well out in front in TOY points and makes them the team to beat this year.

was right at the very end, we couldn’t believe it!” said Dixon.

Teemburra Dam is lined with lily pads that grow into thick clumps, forming islands around the dam. It was on one of these islands that the team found the action heated up.

“Once the sun started to set, we found the bigger fish would move out off the lily pad island into deeper water and we could see them on our Live Sonar sitting in the gaps in the weed,” explained Dixon.

Crowd favourites, the ZEREK Live Mullet in dark ale, as well as the GS1 coloured 7” flat shad, were the most productive lures for Team Venom.

The Live Mullet accounted for their first few fish until the sun began to set, after which the bigger fish for other anglers on the tour, such as Steve Morgan. The 3/4oz model was the head of choice although they did go as heavy as 1oz when the area required it. The jigheads come standard with an eyelet on the bottom for the option to add a stinger hook; which Adam and Troy opted for, using a size 1 Mustad Saltism treble.

Their Flat Shad technique was to throw their baits up onto the very top of the weed and roll them quickly back to the boat, dropping them into the gaps or channels in the weed where they could see where the big fish were sitting.

The rods and reels were a quality combination of WILSON products including a 7’ 30-60lb Blade n’ Tails baitcast rod paired with an ATC Combat V2 reel spooled with soon-to-be-released PE With their win at Teemburra Team Venom consolidated their TOY lead.

RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Place Team

1 Venom

Anglers

Dixon/Meredith

Fish Weight (kg) Payout

5/5 65.01 $2000

2 Anita Barra/Humminbird Robinson/Wilson 5/5

3 Bass Masters Gustafson/Jocumsen 5/5 63.20 $900 53.49 $800

4 Samaki

Lowry/Wood 5 Aberdeen fishing & Outdoors Ford/Price 6 Southern Fried Latham/Lewis 5/5 5/5 5/5 47.05 $700 44.85 $600 44.11 $500

Fishing Monthly wins Kinchant in the Open

Team Fishing Monthly (Steve Morgan and Nicholle Smith) raised a few eyebrows when they boxed the winning limit of the Mustad round of the Zerek Barra Tour at Kinchant Dam. In the Open. Before dark.

In fact, the top two teams were the only ones that abandoned Kinchant’s usually productive edge bite to chase pelagic fish on finesse jerkbaits and Garmin LiveScope. Team Samaki also landed most of their fish before dark on the identical technique.

Fishing Monthly livestreamed the daylight hours and landed nine barra before the sun set, at which point they swapped from a horizontal to a vertical presentation and landed more, albeit smaller fish using Zerek Fish Traps in Anita colour on weed edges. Morgan said,

“It’s been a few years since I started seeing plenty of barra in the open water using my Garmin LiveScope

Scan the QR code to see the Winning team interview

in Perspective mode, but the lightbulb moment was when I interviewed Tommy Wood about fishing Samaki Redic jerk baits last year. Redics and Perspective mode just works and we’ve gone from ordinary barra anglers to successful ones in about 18 months.

Morgan explained how it’s done.

“We literally start in the middle of the lake – in over 30ft of water. Drifting with the wind, we see scattered fish on the LiveScope. The transducer is fitted to the trolling motor shaft and can be controlled with the foot pedal. The drift is slowed down with my PowerPoles fitted with drift paddles.

“With the scope of the live sonar, these fish are all less than 15ft deep. Knowing which direction these fish are, we cast past the barra and slow wind a Samaki Redic (DS80 in whitebait or pink lady) and watch the lure get close to the fish. When the fish shows interest, we stop the lure and let the barramundi approach. Twitch it at the wrong time and the fish spooks. If the fish turns around and starts swimming away, a sharp twitch can often turn them around.”

“It’s awesome fun and it works better in daytime than after dark,” he continued.

Morgan fished the baits on a Millerods OneFreak rod with 40lb Sufix 832 braid and 50lb Wilsons fluorocarbon leader.

He said that the key to the technique is finesse. You’ll spook rather than trigger a bite by working the lure aggressively and the feedback from the forward-facing sonar helped accelerate that learning curve.

After dark, the action moved to the weed edge in 20ft of water. Smith explained that part of the equation.

“It was awesome watching the barra eat the Zerek Fish Traps on the Garmin’s down image. We had the latest colour addition to the Zerek line-up – Anita – and it worked a treat. We had tried straight on in pre-fish with limited success, but after talking to Liam Robinson (a Fish Trap expert and co-creator of the Anita) we found that using a Steve Morgan live-streamed the opening hours of the tournament for team Fishing Monthly taking viewers along for an awesome jerk bait session.

Tommy Wood for team Samaki used the open water LiveScope technique to target big fish in the middle of the lake.

Mustad Fastach clip was key to giving the Fish Trap the needed action to get the bite. Letting the Fish Trap sit on the bottom with some small sharp jerks was all that was needed to get them biting.”

You can see the full rundown of the technique in the QR code hereby.

TEAM SAMAKI

SLIP INTO SECOND

In a changing of the guard, the barra on LiveScope master Tommy Wood (who says he taught Morgo everything he knows!) along with teammate Josh Lowry fishing as team Samaki had to resign to a respectable second place behind Team Fishing Monthly by just 3kg fishing the same open water LiveScope technique.

The plan was to fish the new bad bitty and ghost shad colours in the Samaki Redic DS80 jerk bait, targeting those isolated fish in the middle of the dam before dark.

They Fished 7’ 10-17lb Samaki C12 rods paired with Shimano Tranx baitcast reels spooled with 50lb Upgrade Pentagram X-Braid. As the Redic’s need action imparted on them, a light leader was crucial so as not to hinder the action. For this they used 55lb X-braid Slim & Stronger fluorocarbon leader.

Later in the night they used a prototype Samaki soft plastic swimbait that they fished on the same setups, however with an 80lb fluorcarbon leader. The swimbaits impart their own action, which is not affected by heavier breaking strain.

“We would have had over 15 missed bites for the night and dropped a couple of crackers that could have got us across the line but that’s just the way it goes with barra,” said the everoptimistic Tommy.

One half of the reigning Team of the Year, Tommy Wood is no stranger to the top of the leaderboard and this year is going to be no different. No doubt that good ‘who shares wins’ karma will catch up with team Samaki before the tour ends!

Scan the QR code to see Steve Morgan’s Kinchant Livescope Barramundi

RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Place Team

1 Fishing Monthly 2 Samaki 3 Millerods/Lowrance 4 Imakatsu/Dobyns Rods 5 Garmin 6 Bass Masters 7 Fish With Me 8 Bream W@nk@z

Anglers Fish Weight (kg) Payout

Morgan/Smith Lowry/Wood

5/5 5/5 Beattie/McNamara 5/5 51.01 $2100 48.05 $900 41.74 $800

Maclean/Slade 5/5 41.57 $700

M. Mott/D. Mott

5/5 Gustafson/Jocumsen 5/5 41.26 $600 40.63 $550

BARRA SERIES 2022 abt

BARRA SERIES 2022 abt

Local knowledge wins at Faust

Ask any angler on the barra tour what the most mentally and physically gruelling session is and without a doubt they’ll all agree it’s the massive 16-hour all-nighters. The 5th round of the tour sponsored by Humminbird at Peter Faust Dam was the last all-nighter for the year and by far the most brutal, with relentless southeasterly winds sending white caps over the bow of most boats all night.

Hot Favourites, Peter Laine and Ben Williams (Team T.B.C), reminded everyone just how deadly they are on their favourite dam taking the win over a very in-form Team Anita Barra/Humminbird. They have now won at least one of the two Faust events for the past three years in a row and we suspect they know all the fish in there by name.

Although not favourable conditions for most barra anglers, Laine and Williams have found success previously at Faust when the southerly change blows in.

“We’ve actually done quite well at Faust on a sou’easter in the past, so we didn’t mind the direction, it was just rough and it didn’t stop all night – that was the worst part,” explained Williams. Laine laughed, and added that they thought, “We

Scan the QR code to see the Winning team interview

were either going to snap the tree in half, snap the rope or pull the cleat out of the boat!”

Fortunately, that didn’t happen and they were able to hold on their spot in the timber (near ‘the 45’ area of the dam) where they found the fish sitting just off the weed in the 8-10ft range.

They used the Garmin LiveScope with the new LVS34 transducer to follow the fish around and credit a lot of their success to the technology.

“You had to hit them before they got in the weed so the LiveScope was a must for making sure you kept a bait in front of them,” said Williams.

The fish were sluggish and the technique reflected that, with the boys ‘dredging’ their large soft Ben Williams endured conditions on the northern side of the lake to help put together a winning bag.

Anita Barra / Humminbird used their Humminbird 360 to great effect to secure second place at this round.

Scan the QR code to see the Team of theYear interview plastic swimbaits across the shallow flat.

The two winning baits were a 7” Zerek Flat Shad rigged on an upgraded 1oz TT SL12 jighead with a size 1 treble hook rigged as a stinger and a 50g Thready Buster swimbait.

They both prefer spin outfits for this technique as the rate of retrieve can be controlled far better than baitcast. They also get line to the reel quicker meaning they could get the fish in the boat faster, something important when you’re tied up and can’t chase the fish.

Ben used an ACM custom Northfork X-Ray in the 701A model while Pete used an Edge rods Black Widow 708 model. Both were paired with identical Shimano Stella 4000 SG SWC reels spooled with SUFIX 832 braid and either 80 or 100lb Sunline FC 100 fluorocarbon leader.

THE UNSTOPPABLES

They’ve had themselves a year for the record books already and Team Anita Barra/Humminbird pretty well iced the Team Of the Year trophy with another second-place finish.

They boxed away another cracking limit courtesy of the mighty Zerek Fish Traps in their namesake colour ‘Anita’.

They cruised around the weed beds south of the boat ramp (heading towards Faust Point) on the electric using the Humminbird Mega 360 to locate schools of fish hanging around the edges of the weed.

Once they found the fish they would pull up and drop their fish traps on the fish’s head giving them a short sharp hop off the bottom to aggravate a bite.

They moved around throughout the night and caught fish in various parts of the dam, including the timber and along the dam wall.

This technique continues to prove itself on all barra impoundments across the country and, given the chance, team Anita Barra/ Humminbird continue to towel up the competition on it. With two wins and two second places for the year, the boys were far enough ahead in points to be crowned the Team Of the Year and you can find the details of how they did it in their interview with Steve Morgan by scanning the QR code attached.

RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Place Team 1 T.B.C

Anglers

Laine/Williams 2 Anita Barra/Humminbird Robinson/Wilson 3 Southern Fried Latham/Lewis

4 Mullet Mayhem 5 Fishing Monthly 6 Atomic 7 Mustard Swamp Dogs 8 Samaki 9 Lads From the South 10 Garmin Keegan Hayden Morgan/Smith Martin/Starkey Clark/Walker Lowry/Wood Goward/Parks M. Mott/D. Mott

Fish Weight (kg) Payout

5/5 66.23 $2000

5/5 5/5 5/5 62.00 $800 61.22 $700 57.61 $600

5/5 57.16 $600

5/5 5/5 55.56 $500 55.16 $500

Good old sponsorship karma

Sponsor karma came in strong for the final round of the tour at the 2-night event on Peter Faust Dam sponsored by Samaki. And, you guessed it, Team Samaki took out the event using a whole stack of new and proven Samaki products.

In pre-fish they located a large flat about a kilometre off the bank on the heavily timbered northeastern corner of the dam. Using the quick draw contouring on his Garmin sounder, Tommy found a flat amongst the trees that came up to about 9ft deep where he quickly a tree out in front of them to use as a reference point on the screen and waited for the barra to roll through.

Tommy wood divulged their technique; “We were mainly throwing the DS80 and new DS90 Redics, however, when the fish came through on the screen fast, we found they were feeding on big baits, so we picked up the 140 Molix in tropical mullet and burned it right past their nose to get a reaction bite.”

As they discovered, the lure had to be within a foot of the fish’s nose or they wouldn’t eat it, meaning casting accuracy was Josh Lowry demonstrated that he catches barra just as well as he designs lures in the final round of the Series.

You can tell from this image just how rough the water was that Team Samaki fished.

It seems as though Ben’s team mate Peter was a little shy in front of the camera.

crucial. Channelling that sponsor Karma, they used a fleet of Samaki C12 baitcast rods in the 7ft medium heavy range, changing between specific models depending on the bait.

In contrast to the fish on the shallow edges, they also found good numbers sitting 15-20ft below the surface in the tops of the trees in 65ft of water. These fish were feeding on small shrimp and the perfect imitation they found was the soon to be released Samaki Hardlicious hybrid soft/hard vibe.

It features a hardbody with a soft plastic forked tail that sinks at a much slower rate than the vibelicious, which meant they could tease the fish up to the surface by flicking it up and down without the lure sinking past the following barramundi too fast.

“You had to keep drawing the lure up and the fish would follow it, you’d probably get a bite off 1 in every 10 fish,” explained Tommy.

A lot of skill and a bit of luck got them over the line with a fair share of battles won that would normally be lost (including a metre fish getting wrapped up in the anchor rope and still being

discovered the barra were coming up on to feed.

“I knew this spot would fish good on a southerly and when the wind swung around to the south/ southeast for the start of the 2-nighter I knew it would be on,” explained Tommy.

There’s no doubt about the effectiveness of LiveScope on the barra tour and the guys that have it mastered are at a definite advantage to the field. Tommy Wood is one of those guys.

They used the new LVS34 transducer, which is fast gaining a reputation for perfect clarity at distances as far as 100 feet.

They lined the beam (in perspective mode) up with landed). But, like Tommy expressed, “When these things go your way, you win comps,” and that’s exactly how it went!

QUINELLA AT FAUST

FOR TEAM T.B.C

After their success in the all-nighter, Ben Williams and Peter Laine of Team T.B.C were never going to be far off the money in the following 2-night event.

They employed the same tactics as they did in the all-night session over the 2-night event and the fish they were on held up for the duration.

The exception was that they found the fish bit better during the daylight hours.

They used the same Thready Busters and 1oz 7” Flat Shads as the all-nighter, dredging the big baits along the bottom in 8-10ft to put away their 9/10 limit for 110.74kg.

Scan the QR code to see the Winning team interview

RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Place Team

1 Samaki 2 T.B.C

Anglers

Wood/Lowry Laine/Williams

3 Fishing Monthly

Morgan/Smith 4 Anita Barra/Humminbird Robinson/Wilson

Fish Weight (kg) Payout

10/10 124.32 $2000 9/10 110.74 $800 10/10 102.32 $700 10/10 85.82 $600

5 Atomic 6 Bass Masters 7 Barra Bandits Martin/Starkey

8/10 81.17 $600 Jocumsen/Gustafson 10/10 74.94 $500 Khan/Smith 7/10 56.78 $500

BARRA SERIES 2022 abt