Queensland Fishing Monthly October 2019 by Fishing Monthly

BEST OF THE AFTA TACKLE SHOW

NEW FIND THE LOGO COMPETITION SEE INSIDE

Tried & Tested

Features

Googarra Beach Caravan Park • Bar Crusher 535C with 90hp Suzuki •

Explore freshwater fisheries • Fish, 4WD and Fraser Island • AFTA Tackle Show winners

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October, 2019 Fishing Monthly G R O U P

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X-Rap® Peto (“THE BEAST OF FINNLAND”) combines Rapala’s fish-catching X-Rap® construction with a beautiful colour matched soft tail to create a seamless hybrid bait. With its slow sink rate and perfectly horizontal fall, X-Rap® Peto is the ideal choice for large murray cod, barramundi, mulloway and flathead. This angler friendly lure is easy to use, simply cast lure out, let it sink to required depth, begin a constant slow wind and let the tail thump away to attract large predators with its wide action. Or try a jerk & pause allowing the bait to slowly swim into the depths. The soft tail is firmly secured to the body with a 6-point stainless plate. Spare tail included. Fitted with VMC® Coastal Black™ hooks. Model No. XRPT20 XRPT14

Running Depth 0.5-1m 0.5-1m

Length 20cm 14cm

Weight 83g 39g

Buoyancy Slow Sink Slow Sink

$1,630/ $1,752/ $2,802! $3,379! $1,095 $1,505/ $2,630 $1,532 $1,657 $1,780 SALE PRICE SALE PRICE ! ICE PR SALE LE PRICE! PRICE! PRICE! PRICE! SALE

SALE

$3,912! $4,163!

SALE PRICE

$7,388!

SAL

SALE PRICE

$800 $20 OFF PER HP

Save up up to to Save

QLD’S LARGEST SELLING FIBREGLASS BOAT BRAND

YEARS IN A ROW! MADE LOCALLY IN NOOSA!

$20 OFF PER HP BAYSPORT 565 FISHERMAN

(A) INDICATIVE

P/W*: $258

$51,990!

F4SMHA/ F4LMHA F2.5SMHB F4SMHA/ F4LMHA $1,505/ F2.5SMHB $1,095

MBER!

E595 VE OV NO H BAYSPORT TH 0 3 BER! S D MWEEKENDER N595 BAYSPORT 565 WEEKENDER BAYSPORT FISHERMAN EN -- E N T 0 3 HURRY DS HURRY

(B) INDICATIVE

P/W*:

$55,990!

$59,990!

INDICATIVE F9.9SMHB/ (C) F15SMHA/ F8SMHB/ F9.9SMHB/ F15SMHA/ F9.9LMHB F15LMHA F8SMHB/ $277F8LMHB F9.9LMHB P/W*: $297 F15LMHA $2,747/ $3,315/ F8LMHB $2,576/

F5SMHA/ F6SMHA/ F5SMHA/ F5LMHA F6SMHA/ F6LMHA F5LMHA $1,752/ F6LMHA $1,630/

$63,990!

(D) INDICATIVE F20SMHB/ F25SMHC/ F20SMHB/ F25SMHC/ F20LMHB F25LMHC F30LA(T) P/W*: $316 F20LMHB F25LMHC F30LA(T) $3,848/ $4,100/ $6,985

F40SA(T)/ F40SA(T)/ F40LA(T) F40LA(T) $7,206/

$2,747/ $3,315/ $3,848/ $6,985 $7,206/ E! SALE •PRIC HYDRAULIC STEERING • HYDRAULIC STEERING • YAMAHA F90HP WINCH $4,100/ • GARMIN COLOUR • YAMAHA • YAMAHA F115HP • YAMAHA F90HP$1,505/ F115HP • ANCHOR $2,802 $3,379 $3,912 $4,163 $7,388 $2,576/ $1,630/ $1,752/ $2,630 SALE PRICE! E! E! E! E! PRIC PRIC PRIC PRIC $1,532 $1,657 $1,780 E E E E E PRICE! $2,802 $3,379 $3,912 $4,163 $7,388 SAL SAL SAL SAL SAL E! PRIC $1,095 SALE COMBO • BILGE VHF,PRICNAV GPS/SOUNDER FULLE!CAMPER, • GARMIN COLSAL • GARMIN COLOUR COLOUR • FULL COVER E! E! E PRICE! $2,630 PRICE! PUMP, PRICCAMPER SAL SALE SALE SALE E! • BILGE PRICE!VHF, NAVSALE •PRIC $1,532 $1,657 $1,780 E PRICE! • GARMIN E PRIC EPUMP, E PRICE! SAL SAL SAL SALE PRICE! E! PRICE!WASH, PRICE!PRIV/SCREEN SALE PRIC•E! SALE SALE 100LPRICFUEL MARINE STEREO GPS/SOUNDER SALE• DECK GPS/SOUNDER • DECK WASH, 140L FUEL CABIN PRIV & • MARINE STEREO • CABIN • ROCK RACK & HOLDERS • TABLE & BUNK INFIL • BIMINI & CLEARS • BIMINI & CLEARS • ROCK RACK & HOLDERS FLY SCREEN • TABLE & BUNK INFIL • HYDRAULIC STEERING

BAYSPORT 600 OFFSHORE

BAYSPORT 565 FISHERMAN BAYSPORT 565 FISHERMAN (E) INDICATIVE

$71,990!

BAYSPORT 640 WEEKENDER 640 DELUXE QLD’SBAYSPORT LARGEST SELLING

BAYSPORT 565 WEEKENDER BAYSPORT 565 WEEKENDER (F) INDICATIVE

BAYSPORT 595 WEEKENDER BAYSPORT 595 WEEKENDER (H) INDICATIVE

BAYSPORT 595 FISHERMAN BAYSPORT 595 FISHERMAN (G) INDICATIVE

$76,990!

$79,990!

P/W*: $356 P/W*: $380 P/W*: $395 F130HP • GARMIN COL COMBO • YAMAHA F150HP • 8” GARMIN COL GPS/ •YAMAHA F150HP •BILGE PUMP, VHF, NAV •YAMAHA (A) INDICATIVE (B) INDICATIVE (C) INDICATIVE (A) INDICATIVE (B) INDICATIVE (C) INDICATIVE $ $ $ SOUNDER COMBO P/W*: $258 P/W*: $277 P/W*: $297 • DECK WASH, 160L FUEL • MARINE STEREO • FULL CAMPER, CABIN • S/S FOLDING TARGA •HYDRAULIC STEER $ $ $ P/W*: $258 P/W*: $277 P/W*: $297 • HYDRAULIC STEERING ANCHOR WINCH • GARMIN COLOUR • YAMAHA F90HP • YAMAHA F115HP • YAMAHA F90HP •BILGE S/S TARGA TOP, ROD • TABLE & BUNK INFIL •TOP CUSTOMWINCH BAITBOARD PRIV & FLYF90HP SCREEN W/ F&SF115HP CLEARS•• •ANCHOR ••GARMIN COLOUR COLOUR YAMAHA F90HP • HYDRAULIC YAMAHA • YAMAHA PUMP,STEERING VHF, NAV BILGE PUMP, VHF, NAV GPS/SOUNDER GARMIN COLOUR GARMIN COLOUR FULL CAMPER COVER • GARMIN RACK,WASH, F/S CLEARS QUALITY ELECTRONICS STEERING PUMP, VHF, NAV PUMP, VHF, NAV GPS/SOUNDER ••HYDRAULIC STEER • •BILGE •GPS/SOUNDER GARMIN COLOUR • BILGE GARMIN COLOUR FULL COVER••FRESH/W DECK 100L FUEL ••HYDRAULIC DECK WASH, 140L FUEL MARINE SHOWER STEREO GPS/SOUNDER GPS/SOUNDER CABINCAMPER PRIV/SCREEN

51,,990! 990! 51

BAYSPORT 705

YEARS IN IN QLD’S LARGEST SELLING YEARS FIBREGLASS BOAT BOAT BRAND BRAND A ROW! ROW! FIBREGLASS A MADE LOCALLY LOCALLY IN IN NOOSA! NOOSA! MADE

55,,990! 990! 55

59,,990! 990! 59

$105,490!

P/W*: $521 • YAMAHA F225HP • FLUSHING TOILET (D) INDICATIVE (D) FOLDING INDICATIVE $ •CUSTOM BAITBOARD P/W*: $316TARGA • S/S $ P/W*: $316 • HYDRAULIC STEERING •TOP YAMAHA F115HP • 12” GPS/COMBO W/ F&SF115HP CLEARS • HYDRAULIC • YAMAHA GARMIN COLSTEERING COMBO FULL CAMPER, • QUALITY COLELECTRONICS COMBO ••HYDRAULIC FULL MARINE STEREO CABINCAMPER, PRIV STEER & • GARMIN

63,,990! 990! 63

FUEL CABIN PRIV & • MARINE TABLE & STEREO BUNK INFIL ROCK WASH, RACK &140L HOLDERS FLY SCREEN • GPS/SOUNDER BIMINI & CLEARS • DECK • TABLE & BUNK INFIL FLY SCREEN • BIMINI & CLEARS • ROCK RACK & HOLDERS 10.15% PA INDICATIVE INTEREST RATE* / BAYSPORT 11.58% PA INDICATIVE INTEREST RATE* DISCLAIMER: *REPAYMENT AMOUNT SHOWN IS THE WEEKLY EQUIVALENT OF A MONTHLY INSTALMENT BAYSPORT 600 OFFSHORE 640 WEEKENDER BAYSPORT 640 DELUXE BAYSPORT 705 OF (A)$258 (B)$277 (C)$297 (E)$356 (F)$380 (G)$395 (H)$521 AT A DRIVE PRICE OF (A)$51,990 (B)$55,990 (C)$59,990 (D)$63,990 (E)$71,990 (F)$76,990 (G)$79,990 (H)$105,490. IT IS INDICATIVE BAYSPORT 600(D)$316 OFFSHORE BAYSPORT 640 AWAY WEEKENDER BAYSPORT 640 DELUXE BAYSPORT 705 ONLY AND IS CALCULATED BASED ON AN INTEREST RATE OF 10.15% P.A. (COMPARISON RATE 11.58% P.A.), AND 60 MONTHLY INSTALMENTS AND AN APPLICATION FEE OF $395. INTEREST RATE USED IS BASED ON AN AVERAGE INDIVIDUAL CREDIT RATING AND MEETING MANDATORY CREDIT CRITERIA. REPAYMENTS AND INTEREST RATE MAY VARY DEPENDING ON YOUR INDIVIDUAL CIRCUMSTANCES, FINANCIAL POSITION, CREDIT RATING, INFORMATION PROVIDED, LOAN AMOUNT AND LOAN TERM. OFFER AVAILABLE TO PRIVATE BUYERS ONLY WHILE STOCKS LAST. COMPARISON RATE IS BASED ON A 5 YEAR SECURED FIXED RATE CONSUMER LOAN OF $30,000. WARNING: THIS COMPARISON RATE IS TRUE ONLY FOR THE EXAMPLES GIVEN AND MAY NOT INCLUDE ALL FEES AND CHARGES. DIFFERENT TERMS, FEES OR OTHER LOAN AMOUNTS MIGHT RESULT IN A FUEL ROCK WASH, RACK &100L HOLDERS • GPS/SOUNDER BIMINI & CLEARS • DECK • BIMINI & CLEARS • ROCK RACK & HOLDERS

$71 71,,990! 990! $

• CABIN PRIV/SCREEN TABLE & STEREO BUNK INFIL HYDRAULIC STEERING• MARINE • HYDRAULIC STEERING• TABLE & BUNK INFIL

$76 76,,990! 990! $

$79 79,,990! 990! $

DIFFERENT COMPARISON RATE. CREDIT CRITERIA, FEES, (F) CHARGES, TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY. YAMAHA(G)MOTOR FINANCE AUSTRALIA PTY. LTD. ABN 29 (E) INDICATIVE INDICATIVE INDICATIVE (E) INDICATIVE (F) INDICATIVE (G) INDICATIVE P/W*: $356 P/W*: $380 P/W*: $395 P/W*: $356 P/W*: $380 P/W*: $395 • GARMIN COL COMBO • YAMAHA F150HP • 8” GARMIN COL GPS/ •YAMAHA F150HP • BILGE PUMP, VHF, NAV • YAMAHA F130HP PUMP, 160L VHF, NAV COL COMBO • YAMAHA GARMINCOMBO COL GPS/ F130HP F150HP DECK WASH, FUEL • YAMAHA MARINE STEREO SOUNDER •YAMAHA F150HP FULL CAMPER, CABIN • GARMIN S/S FOLDING TARGA• 8” HYDRAULIC STEER• BILGE WASH, 160L FUEL • FULL COMBO CAMPER, CABIN • MARINE TARGA• SOUNDER S/S TARGA TOP, ROD TABLE & STEREO BUNK INFIL • S/S CUSTOM BAITBOARD •GARMIN HYDRAULIC STEER• DECK PRIV & FLY SCREEN TOPFOLDING W/ F&S CLEARS COLOUR

$105 105,,490! 490! $

101 928 670. AUSTRALIAN CREDIT LICENCE 394553. (H) INDICATIVE (H) INDICATIVE P/W*: $521 P/W*: $521 • YAMAHA F225HP • FLUSHING TOILET

Repower CASH FOR LATE for Lwesesr! MODEL BOATS! ower CASH FOR LATE Reppo

TOILET • YAMAHA F225HP CUSTOM BAITBOARD S/S FOLDING TARGA• FLUSHING BAITBOARD • S/S TARGA• CUSTOM 12” GPS/COMBO TOPFOLDING W/ F&S CLEARS TARGA TOP, ROD & BUNK INFIL • TOP GPS/COMBO & FLY SCREEN W/ F&S CLEARS W/ F&S CLEARS RACK, F/S CLEARS FRESH/W SHOWER QUALITY BAITBOARD ELECTRONICS • TOP QUALITY ELECTRONICS • GARMIN COLOUR • S/S • PRIV HYDRAULIC STEERING• TABLE HYDRAULIC STEER • CUSTOM HYDRAULIC STEER • 12” GPS/SOUNDER RACK, F/S CLEARS • HYDRAULIC STEERING• FRESH/W SHOWER • HYDRAULIC STEER • QUALITY ELECTRONICS • HYDRAULIC STEER • QUALITY ELECTRONICS GPS/SOUNDER 10.15% PA INDICATIVE INTEREST RATE* / 11.58% PA INDICATIVE INTEREST RATE* DISCLAIMER: *REPAYMENT AMOUNT SHOWN IS THE WEEKLY EQUIVALENT OF A MONTHLY INSTALMENT OF (A)$258PA (B)$277 (C)$297 (D)$316 (E)$356 (F)$380 (H)$521 PA AT AINDICATIVE DRIVE AWAY PRICE OF (A)$51,990 (C)$59,990 (D)$63,990 (E)$71,990 (F)$76,990 (H)$105,490. OF IT A IS MONTHLY INDICATIVEINSTALMENT ONLY AND 10.15% INDICATIVE INTEREST RATE*(G)$395 / 11.58% INTEREST RATE*(B)$55,990 DISCLAIMER: *REPAYMENT AMOUNT SHOWN IS THE (G)$79,990 WEEKLY EQUIVALENT IS CALCULATED BASED ON AN INTEREST RATE OF 10.15% P.A. (COMPARISON RATE 11.58% P.A.), AND 60 MONTHLY INSTALMENTS AND AN APPLICATION FEE OF $395. INTEREST RATE USED IS BASED ON AN AVERAGE OF (A)$258 (B)$277 (C)$297 (D)$316 (E)$356 (F)$380 (G)$395 (H)$521 AT A DRIVE AWAY PRICE OF (A)$51,990 (B)$55,990 (C)$59,990 (D)$63,990 (E)$71,990 (F)$76,990 (G)$79,990 (H)$105,490. IT IS INDICATIVE ONLY AND INDIVIDUAL CREDIT RATING AND MEETING MANDATORY CRITERIA. REPAYMENTS RATE MAYINSTALMENTS VARY DEPENDING ONAPPLICATION YOUR INDIVIDUAL FINANCIAL CREDIT RATING, IS CALCULATED BASED ON AN INTEREST RATE OF 10.15% CREDIT P.A. (COMPARISON RATE 11.58% AND P.A.), INTEREST AND 60 MONTHLY AND AN FEE OF CIRCUMSTANCES, $395. INTEREST RATE USED ISPOSITION, BASED ON AN AVERAGE INFORMATIONCREDIT PROVIDED, LOAN LOAN TERM. OFFER AVAILABLE TO PRIVATE BUYERS ONLY WHILE COMPARISON RATEINDIVIDUAL IS BASED ON A 5 YEAR SECURED FIXED RATE CONSUMER LOAN INDIVIDUAL RATING ANDAMOUNT MEETINGAND MANDATORY CREDIT CRITERIA. REPAYMENTS AND INTEREST RATE MAYSTOCKS VARY LAST. DEPENDING ON YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES, FINANCIAL POSITION, CREDIT RATING, OF $30,000. WARNING: THIS COMPARISON IS TRUE ONLYOFFER FOR THE EXAMPLES AND MAY ONLY NOT INCLUDE ALL FEES ANDCOMPARISON CHARGES. DIFFERENT TERMS, ON FEESA OR OTHERSECURED LOAN AMOUNTS MIGHT RESULT LOAN IN A INFORMATION PROVIDED, LOAN AMOUNT RATE AND LOAN TERM. AVAILABLE TO GIVEN PRIVATE BUYERS WHILE STOCKS LAST. RATE IS BASED 5 YEAR FIXED RATE CONSUMER DIFFERENT COMPARISON RATE. CREDIT CRITERIA, FEES, CHARGES, TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY. YAMAHA MOTOR FINANCE AUSTRALIA PTY. LTD. ABN 29 101 928 670. AUSTRALIAN CREDIT LICENCE 394553. OF $30,000. WARNING: THIS COMPARISON RATE IS TRUE ONLY FOR THE EXAMPLES GIVEN AND MAY NOT INCLUDE ALL FEES AND CHARGES. DIFFERENT TERMS, FEES OR OTHER LOAN AMOUNTS MIGHT RESULT IN A DIFFERENT COMPARISON RATE. CREDIT CRITERIA, FEES, CHARGES, TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY. YAMAHA MOTOR FINANCE AUSTRALIA PTY. LTD. ABN 29 101 928 670. AUSTRALIAN CREDIT LICENCE 394553.

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October 2019, Vol. 31 No.12

Contents NORTHERN NEW SOUTH WALES

Yamba 20

Ballina 22 SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND The Tweed

Southern Gold Coast

Gold Coast Canals

Jumpinpin 28 Gold Coast

Southern Bay

Brisbane 34 Brisbane Offshore

Noosa 37 CENTRAL QUEENSLAND Hervey Bay

Rainbow Beach

Gladstone 46 Bundaberg 48 Rockhampton 48 Stanage Bay

Yeppoon 50 Mackay 51 TROPICAL NORTH QUEENSLAND Whitsundays 52 Ayr 53 Townsville 54

From the Editor’s Desk... NEW GEAR FROM AFTA READY FOR SUMMER With the timing this year, the AFTA Trade Show was held just after we went to print with the September issues, which meant we weren’t able to bring you the latest and award winning products until this issue. The awards are voted on by retailers. Each store gets to cast a single vote in each division and these are tallied to find a winner. Some categories are closely fought while others have a winner by a country mile – it just depends on how innovative the product is and if it stands out amongst its competitors. Some categories have only a handful of entries while others have plenty. There were over 40 hardbodied lures in the Hard Body category alone! We have published winners and runners up and

these products are worth a look. We’re sure you’ll see them in your local tackle store in the coming months.

The response was overwhelmingly positive. For $10, you got to come and see the vast array of

PUBLIC DAY A GREAT SUCCESS It’s taken us a long time to get the public a day to access the AFTA Trade Show, but on the last Saturday of the show, you guys got to do just that – see all of the gear that tackle stores see before it comes out in the stores.

tackle on display from over 60 companies that service the Australian fishing retail industry. Fishing Monthly conducted some exit surveys, and we want to thank everyone who took a minute or two to answer some questions. Your responses will help mould

what the public day will be in future. It was encouraging that 98% of visitors thought it was great value for money, even though retail selling wasn’t allowed, and a similar percentage of visitors were off to their local tackle store to order product they had seen. Naturally, the most common answers to ‘the best thing about the show’ were the interactive displays: the barra filled Supertank, the lure swimming tank and the stands of the major brands. Nothing surprising there – we know that it’s fun to see a lure swim and a fish eat it, as well as have a go on a fishing simulator. So if you came, thank you for doing so. For those who missed it, whack it in the diary for next year. I’m pretty sure the tackle industry actually likes your company even if they were a little scared to go on that first date!

Cairns 55 Port Douglas

Hinchinbrook 56 Cairns NFZ

Lucinda 57 Cooktown 58

Camping and 4WD

Cooking 82 Dam Levels

Freshwater 72

Business Office: Unit 1, 11 Knobel Court, Shailer Park, Qld, 4128 Phone: (07) 3387 0800 Fax: (07) 3387 0801

SINCE 1987

Advertising Enquiries: Ph: (07) 3387 0800 Nicole Kelly nkelly@fishingmonthly.com.au Printing: APN – News Corp Australia

Fun Page

Sheik of the Creek

Tech Tricks

Tournament News

Editorial Manager: Jacqui Thomas

Track my fish

Trades and Services

Sub-Editors: Nicole Penfold Bob Thornton Lucette Eggleton

Website: www.wp.fishingmonthly.com.au

Field Editors: Jason Ehrlich Wayne Kampe

Subscriptions: Kym Rowbotham

SPECIAL FEATURES Explore freshwater fisheries

Fish, 4WD and Fraser Island

AFTA Tackle Show winners

Googarra Beach Caravan Park

PARTNER CONTENT

Qld Fishing Monthly Pty Ltd ABN 72-010-542-195 All material is © copyright, and cannot be reproduced in part or in full, by any means, without written permission of the Managing Editor. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher.

FISH

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Published by:

OCTOBER 2019

Annual Subscriptions: $65 for twelve issues (GST inc.) Make cheques payable to Queensland Fishing Monthly PO Box 3172 LOGANHOLME QLD 4129

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Lake Monduran Golden Barra

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Distribution: Gordon & Gotch Pty Ltd

Nicholas Willett with his first ever saratoga caught on a Bassman spinnerbait while fishing the upper reaches of Somerset Dam. A Peter Jung image.

Publishers: Steve Morgan Matthew Drinkall

Production: Karen Millward Keith Hawley

OUR COVER

Black Magic Masterclass

Managing Editor: Steve Morgan s.morgan@fishingmonthly.com.au

Come and visit Fishing Monthly Group’s official Facebook page for all your monthly fishing information. Download QR Reader to access.

AUST

QUEENSLAND FISHING MONTHLY

ION

Back to Basics

103

REGULAR FEATURES

BOATING AND KAYAK

PRO

Cape York

ING TRADE

Itâ€™s not the

size of the

doeg

in th

. . . t h fig SLIDOG IN 150 & 125

AVAILABLE

www.halcotackle.com

#slidog @halcotackle

There is no better time to hit the freshwater FMG

Peter Jung pjung@fishingmonthly.com.au

September has seen the days slowly get longer and night has lost a bit

or has died off, reduced to a layer in the shallow margins or in some cases, no weed at all. The colder temperatures have taken their toll. The transition period sees the margins come to life again as water temperatures

Don’t overlook smaller impoundments for fishing opportunities. Chris Jordan got this nice bass at Lake Kurwongbah casting spinnerbaits to the edges. of its chill. This transition out of winter/dry season patterns is the spark that lights the fire under our SE Queensland freshwater fisheries. Not only does it offer the ability to catch more fish using a multitude of techniques, but the species options also increase. October is the month to cash in on these changes as a freshwater angler. Although it was not the coldest winter, it did get cold enough that weed around the edges of our impoundments has either become dormant

slowly increase. Weed begins to re-establish itself and with that comes increased insect and baitfish activity. With comfortable water temperatures, plenty of cover to hide in and a buffet of food to eat, freshwater species are going to relish this opportunity to flourish. WHAT SPECIES DO YOU WANT TO TARGET? When I was planning this article, my first thought was to focus on the big three species: bass, golden perch and barramundi. However, it occurred to me that as freshwater anglers in the area of Mackay down to the NSW border, we are blessed with opportunity and species. Add saratoga, sooty grunter and Murray cod to the equation and there is something for every fisher. Australian bass Many of our SE Queensland impoundments are heavily stocked with Australian bass. The winter pattern to target them is heavily based on the fact that the fish go into spawning mode and school up in large numbers in deeper water. As this spawning urge subsides and the dinner bell calls, they

As the days get longer and the impoundment margins come to life, bass will snap out of spawning mode and make their way to the edges. can be caught in all manner of lures like crankbaits, spinnerbaits, surface lures,

Maroon Dam is a great little fishery with an excellent surface bite. It is

There are plenty of quality golden perch to be caught in the impoundments. The author caught this solid model on an Obsession Spinnerbait rolled through some standing timber.

Hinze Dam is full of structure and fish. A great way to target them is by using a kayak.

soft plastics, stickbaits and spoons, just to name a few. Jason Ehrlich provides a comprehensive rundown in this magazine every month on what might be best and where, but these are some of the best.

a great place to experiment with techniques, as most will work. In Hinze Dam, there is an abundance of timbered arms and this structure is very attractive to fish. Like Maroon, your technique

options are only limited by your imagination. Somerset Dam is not really recognised as an edge bite fishery. It can have a small window of opportunity in October, especially if an increase in water levels occurs. There are some seriously big fish in Somerset and tangling with them around the edges is a challenge in itself. As picturesque as it is fishy, Borumba Dam has plenty of structure, both timber and weed beds, to get fish to the edges and on the chew. Boondooma and BjelkePetersen dams have low water levels at the moment but still hold plenty of fish. Visiting these areas will support the local community and areas in need. Golden perch There isn’t as much hype about golden perch fisheries as there was when I first came to Queensland. Somerset Dam in particular had a dedicated group of anglers who focused on them back then, but this doesn’t

MOTU

Named after the perfect spot to take a break in the crystal, clear waters of the salt flats, the Costa Motu sunglasses are great for catching a couple of cold ones in between casts.

GRAY:

OPTIMAL USE: A good everyday choice for activities on the water and land. • 12% light transmission

OCTOBER 2019

• All-around activities • Natural contrast

Janelle Willett demonstrates the quality of golden perch fishing in Glenlyon Dam.

seem to be the case now. Although they have been stocked in most waterways, the key fisheries are the more southern impoundments. Glenlyon, Leslie, Cooby and Coolmunda are all excellent golden perch dams, with Wivenhoe, Somerset and Borumba holding some trophy-sized fish. Goldens love structure in the form of timber and rock. If this coincides with a change of depth or deep water nearby you have every chance of tangling with one. They are very partial to lipless crankbaits and spinnerbaits, but a method that has proven to be highly effective is to roll plastics (black curl tails) up and down the trunks of standing timber. It is not uncommon to catch multiple fish from one piece of timber. Barramundi From the Mackay region down, there are a number of decent impoundment barramundi fisheries. Kinchant and Teemburra near Mackay have had quality fishing for many years. The exciting thing for SE Queensland anglers is that most southern dams in Lake Monduran and Lake

Hopping soft plastic vibes like the Zerek Fish Trap around timber and weed edges has been a very effective technique in recent years. This barra smashed Troy Dixonâ€™s Fish Trap as he ripped it out of a deep weed edge. Photo courtesy of Troy Dixon.

the lakes are that the fishing during the cooler months was better than ever and the average size of the fish caught is increasing. The transition period is a great time for barramundi. They tend to slow down a bit through the cooler period, so they are extra hungry when the water starts warming and consistent wind patterns push the food and predators to the shorelines facing the

paddle-tail plastics slow rolled along weed edges. Ripping larger soft plastics vibes out of the weed is another technique that has proven deadly recently. This may be one of the best years in the SE Queensland barra impoundments in a long time. Saratoga This is one of my favourite fish to catch. They

Nicholas Willett has every reason to smile. This was his second saratoga of the day. Awonga are showing signs that their recovery is almost complete after both lakes overflowed and many of the stocked fish departed over the dam walls. Reports from

wind direction. Points and weed edges can be targeted using hardbodied lures worked in a rhythmic action back to an anchored boat or larger

are seriously aggressive, using lilypads, timber and weed to hide in before ambushing their prey. In many cases, hooking a toga To page 12

Chris Jordan prospects a timbered edge at Lake Borumba. OCTOBER 2019

Golden Barra Competition MAJOR PRIZE BUNDABERG TOYOTA GOLDEN BARRA

$150,000 A Dual cab

Toyota GXL V8 Landcruiser + Bundaberg Marineland Seajay boat, motor, trailer and extras! LAST YEAR’S GOLDEN BARRA

$5000 worth of Shimano fishing equipment! LAST YEAR’S PLATINUM BARRA

$5000 worth of Tackleworld Bundaberg fishing equipment! NEWLY TAGGED SILVER BARRA

Covering approximately 5,340 hectares and with an average depth of 11m when full, Lake Monduran is the perfect environment for barramundi. The lake is the home of the 2010 world record holding barra, which tipped the scales at 44.6kg when it was caught on rod and reel by kayaker Denis Harrold. Now, anglers will get an opportunity to snag the biggest prized barra in Queensland when the Bundaberg Toyota Golden Barra competition kicks off again in October this year! The unique competition, which targets coloured barramundi, is the first of its kind in Australia. To secure the major prize of a Bundaberg Toyota Landcruiser Dual Cab ute with all the extras and a Bundaberg Marineland/Seajay Boat, motor and trailer package with all the extras, budding barra hunters will need to land the rare golden coloured barra. This prize package is worth a total of $150,000, which is tenfold on last year’s major prize. If that’s not enough to lure you in, sponsors have also put up some great prizes for any angler that catches one of ten tagged barra.

OCTOBER 2019

The competition will commence on Saturday 19 October 2019 and finish on 19 February 2020 at midnight. Anglers can fish anytime through this period over the four months. For terms and conditions of entry and to be eligible to claim prizes, participants must register at www.goldenbarra.com.au.

$5000 of fishing gear from Wilson Fishing! $5000 of Jackall Australia fishing equipment! $5000 of kayak and gear from Sunstate Hobie! $5000 cash from Master Cabinets! CATEGORY THREE PRIZES

$3000 EJ Todd Luckycraft Lures! $3000 cash from Lake Monduran Holiday Park! CATEGORY FOUR PRIZES

$1000 Takalvans Bundaberg Camec 50-litre fridge

October 19, 2019 - February 19, 2020 (midnight) Fish anytime through this period

MAJOR PRIZE

$150,000

FREE ENTRY

BUNDABERG TOYOTA GOLDEN BARRA

A dual cab Toyota GXL V8 Landcruiser with extras and a Bundaberg Marineland Seajay boat, motor, trailer and extras!

To secure the major prize barra - hunters will need to land this yearâ€™s rare golden coloured barra!

Plus BONUS PRIZE PACK At the end of each month a guaranteed $1500 prize pack will be given away by Rapala Australia to the angler that catches the biggest barra (untagged) caught on a Rapala lure.

Photos for illustration pruposes only

$190,000 TOTAL PRIZE POOL For terms and conditions or to register for the competition visit lakem.com.au/goldenbarra.

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BEST OF SHOW AWARDS

2019 AFTA Tackle Trade Show

AFTA FISHING TACKLE WRAP UP : 15TH - 17TH AUGUST 2019 The biggest event on the Australian tackle industry’s calendar is without a doubt the AFTA Tackle Trade Show. The biggest brand names in the tackle industry descend on the Gold Coast each year, mingling with innovative up-and-coming enterprises hoping to be the next big thing. It’s a time when new products are unveiled and new fishing trends begin, and for the first time this year the public got to experience it first-hand. Like all trade shows, the AFTA show has never been open to the general public, but AFTA decided it was time for a change. It was decided that the final day of the show should be a Public Day, so that any angler could see the latest and greatest gear from their favourite brands. No one in the trade was sure how popular this experiment would be, but the 2019 Public Day turned out to be a great success. Due to its popularity, it's likely that AFTA will run it again in 2020. If you missed the 2019 Public Day, there are a number of reasons to check it out next year.

• Unlike a boat show, the AFTA Show is purely for tackle and outdoor products, which means that brands can exhibit a much larger range of gear; • Exhibitors have pro staff and tackle designers on-hand to chat and answer your questions; • Because the event is used by many companies to unveil their new releases, it’s the perfect place to be if you love seeing the latest gear; • Well-known fishing personalities attend each year, so you might have the chance to meet your favourite presenter or tournament pro; • There are interactive attractions for both adults and children to enjoy, including fishing simulators, the Supertank and personalising your own lure; and • There’s a variety of free branded merchandise to bring home in your sample bag. The fact that the average visitor stuck around for 3-4 hours is testament to how much fun the day was! BEST NEW PRODUCTS For members of the tackle trade, one

of the most exciting things about the show is the Best of Show Awards. Each year the exhibitors enter their new releases in the Best Of Show, and the retailers and media then judge the products based on criteria such as innovation, quality and practicality. There are 20 categories, covering tackle, accessories and apparel, and the competition is fierce – especially in the rod, reel and lure categories. Tackle retailers are always hungry for

something different, so those product entries that are particularly ingenious or unique are often the ones that come out on top. You can see the evidence of this in some of the most popular entries this year, which included a spider, a lure tray full of spikes, a rod butt with interchangeable tips, a hard rod tube that conveniently folds out flat, a waterproof bag sealed with magnets, and an octopus that releases its own ink. Read on to see which products were voted the best of 2019!

WHAT IS AFTA? The Australian Fishing Trade Association does a lot of important work behind the scenes that most anglers don’t know about. As well as supporting its wholesale and retail members, it also lobbies governments to protect angler access. In today’s political climate, our fishing rights are increasingly under threat, and for this reason it’s vital to maintain pressure on governments to protect our right to fish. If you work in the tackle, boating or outdoor trade and would like to know more about AFTA, visit www.afta.net.au.

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Humminbird Mega 360 Imaging

Yeti Rambler R12 Bottle

Humminbird MEGA 360 Imaging sweeps up to 125ft (38m) in every direction around your boat to deliver incredibly clear images of structure, bottom and fish, even while you’re sitting still, allowing you to make more accurate casts. This new release brings Humminbird’s unmatched coverage of 360 Imaging technology into the megahertz range for nextlevel detail. Like underwater radar, the MEGA 360 Imaging beam rotates, giving you a 360° view of the water that’s constantly updating, with your boat at the centre. Fish won’t ever see you coming, allowing you to cast and hook fish before they even know you’re there. MEGA 360 Imaging is compatible with Solix Series and Helix Series fishfinders equipped with MEGA Imaging+. In addition to superior detail and coverage, Humminbird provides built-in mapping, impressive screen resolution, intuitive control and more. For a full list of features, plus photos and videos, visit the BLA website. www.bla.com.au

On-the-go coffee enthusiasts, meet the ultimate drinking vessel for filling up and hitting the road. While this 12oz (354mL) bottle is conveniently light and fits in standard cup holders, it holds more than enough coffee to jump-start your day, whether you’re gearing up for an early morning trip or need an energy boost before a full day on the water. Even better, this Rambler is topped with a unique, 360°, 100% leakproof HotShot Cap that lives up to its name by letting you sip from any side while locking in piping-hot temperatures for hours on end. With just a half twist and a click, you can sip from any side and enjoy that perfect, piping-hot temp. And as an added bonus, you can put the Hot Shot Cap on any of Yeti’s Rambler Bottles, because it’s compatible with all of them (although not the Tumblers). The 1” thick lid keeps the heat in, and it’s also shatter resistant and dishwasher safe. Price: SRP $39.95 au.yeti.com

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Humminbird Mega 360 Imaging

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Yeti Rambler R12 Bottle

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Gorilla Grip Rhinoflex A5 Cut Gloves

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Atomic Casting Gloves

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Gorilla Grip Rhinoflex A5 Cut Gloves

Atomic Casting Gloves

For many fishing applications, to light tasks and heavy-duty work, the Gorilla Grip patented gloves are the go-to for anglers and tinkerers alike. With maximum durability, dexterity and a trusted neverslip grip, Gorilla Grip guarantees superior grip every time. On the boat or at the cleaning table, Gorilla Grips A5 Cut gloves are a must for every tackle box, and landing big fish by hand or cutting through tough hides can be done with complete safety. This glove features a highly breathable, flexible design with an ANSI level 5 industrial cut protection rating featuring proprietary polymer technology on the palm that pulls moisture away from the surface and provides maximum grip in wet and oily conditions. The formfitting design, breathable nylon shell, fitted elastic cuff, patented non-slip technology and stain resistant finish make these gloves the ultimate clothing accessories for a range of fishing applications. www.jmgillies.com.au

So many of us like to work hard, and play hard, especially when it comes to fishing. It’s for this reason that anglers like to take care of their hands, especially since most of us aren’t battle-hardened warriors with leather hands! The Atomic Casting Gloves offer your hands protection at a reasonable price for thousands and thousands of casts, meaning you can fish hard and not have to pay the price for it! Atomic Casting Gloves are designed for anglers by anglers, and offer more than just protection from heavy tackle. The fingered gloves also offer great sun protection and make for safer fish handling when dealing with spiky and toothy predators. The gloves come in standard Australian sizing. Your hands are a valuable fishing tool, so why not give them the best protection you can? www.frogleysoffshore.com.au

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Daiwa Tatula 150/702MHB

Abu Garcia’s Salty Stage KR-X Jigging rod and Light Jigging Reel have slid in as runner up in the Best Combo category, and this truly is a match made in heaven for those who like this bare-knuckled form of fishy fun! The KR-X Jigging rods have been designed using the latest in jigging technology fresh from Japan and come packed with highquality components and special features, including a crisp 80% carbon + 20% glass construction, cork and EVA slit handle, butt joint, Fuji reel seat, Fuji K-Guide Alconite guides and X-Wrap blank design. They come in medium, medium light, and medium heavy (PE 2.0-3.0, PE 1.0-4.0 and PE 2.0-4.0) in 6’3”, 6’3” and 7’0” respectively. The Salty Stage Light Jigging reel is its perfect match, and features 7.3:1 gear ratio, Powerstack Drag System, Oversize Powerknob handle, 8 bearings system including two salt shielded bearings, Infini Brake system and Duraclutch. With a maximum drag of 14kg and a weight of 254g, this reel will sit beautifully on any of the three KR-X Jigging rods. www.purefishing.com.au

Taking out the Best Combo category at the 2019 AFTA show was Daiwa’s Tatula 702MHB rod and Tatula 150 reel combo. The iconic Tatula series of rods has been upgraded with new components, new actions and enhanced performance, making them Daiwa’s best Tatula rods ever. The 702MHB is one of 11 models (eight baitcast and three swimbait models), and features an SVF blank with 3DX carbon, Fuji’s brand-new LKW frame guides, Fuji PLS Palming Support reel seat and Spiral Palming grip. The Tatula 150 is a fantastic casting reel, and is tailor made for those looking for a midsized workhorse. It features an aluminium frame and gear side plate, Daiwa’s famous Digigear gear system, TWS, Magforce Z, UTD drag, 100mm Swept Handle and large paddle knobs. The 150 comes in 5.4:1, 6.3:1 and 7.3:1 gear ratios. These two combine to make a perfect casting set-up for fresh and saltwater predators that has the ultimate balance between price and performance. Price: from RRP $249.99 (rod) and RRP $289 (reel) www.daiwafishing.com.au

Abu Garcia Salty Stage Light Jigging Low Profile / KRX

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Abu Garcia Salty Stage Light Jigging Low Profile / KRX

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Rio DC Flats Line

Based in Plymouth in the far South West of England, the team at Snowbee are spoilt for choice with their fly fishing options, and understand the need for quality products. Snowbee’s XS-Plus Thistledown weight forward floating line is no exception, and the addition of the new 5-7wt model will be welcomed by the fly fishing community. Following the success of the 2-5wt model, the introduction of the 5-7wt was a no-brainer. The Thistledown is a unique flyline, and is the ultimate in fly fishing finesse, and perfect for small stream trout fishing. Sometimes however, the trout aren’t always small, which is where the new 5-7wt comes into play. The new and improved braided core means a finer and stronger core, and a more supple line over all, which also means less memory issues than before. The XS-Plus is 90ft long, and comes in olive and buckskin colours, which blend in beautifully to the countryside of a trout stream. www.ejtodd.com.au

Rio is known for producing a wide selection of flylines for anglers of all abilities in all conditions, and Rio’s Direct Core Flats Pro is one of their specialty flylines. Whether fishing flats for bones and permit, peppering the mangroves or jacks and barra, sinking flies for schooled bass of presenting small dries to finicky stream trout, it’s important to have the right flyline, and Rio always have you covered. The DC Flats Pro flyline is built with sophisticated tapers and the latest technology for the modern flats angler, and has easy annealing, and a low-memory core that lays perfectly straight on the water, which is perfect when trying to convince that trophy permit or bonefish to eat your fly! The DC Flats Pro comes in 7, 8, 9 and 10wt in floating, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12wt in intermediate, and 8, 9 and 10wt in sink tip. www.jmgillies.com.au

BEST FLY LINE RUNNER UP

Snobee XS-Plus Thistledown 5-7

Rio DC Flats Line

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Sage Trout 4/5/6

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Alvey Saltwater Fly Reel

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Alvey Saltwater Fly Reel

The new Sage Trout 4/5/6 mixes classic aesthetics with modern performance. Drawing inspiration from the historic Sage 500 series reels, the Modern Classics collection introduces reels designed for the angler longing for a nod to the past. This reel has a romantic appeal to designs and colours that reflect a classic feel of old yet packed with performance features that will assure you’ll never lose that fish of a lifetime. While honouring their heritage with a fullframe design, narrow profile, and classic styling, the backbone of the Trout is Sage’s proven One Revolution, Sealed Carbon System (SCS) drag. The 4/5/6 is the heart of the series, which will balance perfectly with the majority of all-around trout rods. The Trout 4/5/6 also features a large and concave arbor for fast line pick-up and greater strength and capacity, easy conversion from left to right-hand retrieve, and a Neoprene and embroidered ballistic nylon reel case. If you want to fish with a classic Sage design but have all the benefits of their modern cutting edge technology, the Sage Trout is the perfect reel for you. www.jmgillies.com.au

Alvey Saltwater Fly Reels are renowned for their performance, catching small marlin, swordfish, tuna and more with their smooth, powerful drag. Uniquely, these reels don’t require the hours of maintenance most other fly reels do. A rinse in saltwater while fishing will keep you going, and when you get home you just give it a rinse out in a bucket of fresh water, put a couple of drops of oil on the moving parts, and you’re ready for the next trip. The reel features a strong metal foot, stainless steel line guides, and metal pins in the clutch housing that protect the metal clutch washers from overheating and damaging the spool. The fixed handle plate makes handling a big fish a lot safer, allowing the spool to turn backwards under clutch pressure. Alvey Managing Director Bruce Alvey says their customers have had great success with this reel, and the new version is even stronger and lighter, with the use of carbon and titanium to ensure this reel keeps on catching large fish. It will be released in the coming months, so keep an eye out for it at your favourite tackle store. www.alvey.com.au

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TryCD AllFly

BEST FLY ROD RUNNER UP

Sage Trout LL Series

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Sage Trout LL Series

TryCD AllFly

With a delicate touch and medium action, the Trout LL family has been designed with the trout angler and dry flies in mind. Through blank taper optimisation and specialised length offerings, the Trout LL is perfected for wade fishing, closer casts, small flies, and light tippets. A relatively supple tip maximizes light tippet protection and gives way to a smooth, easy-loading mid-section that increases feel and feedback throughout the casting stroke. When the hatch is on, the Trout LL is an angler’s best friend. Drawing inspiration from historic Sage rods of the past, the Trout LL is a nod toward tradition with a classic appearance and a smooth casting taper, yet adds modern performance features in accuracy and loop control through the backbone of Konnetic HD blank material. The Trout LL series is available in a combination of classic dry fly line weights and lengths 7’9” though 9’0” while beautiful wood inserts and premium componentry add an elegant touch to these high performance rods. www.jmgillies.com.au

A complete Allfly set lets you fish most freshwater fly fishing conditions with one package. When waterway conditions change, anglers need to change rods, which is frustrating to do with a conventional rod tube. The Allfly makes the process much easier. The first step is to start with the universal Allfly base, and then you attach the 3-piece TryCD rod that suits your fishing needs – either the 5/6 or the 7/8. There’s also the option to include the 1ft Extender, to extend the rod from 9ft to 10ft. Allfly rods are made using the best Japanese high-modulus materials. Each blank is handmade with precise amounts of laser-cut 40T carbon and constructed in a unique helix formation. The blanks are light, crisp and very strong. The rods come in a unique case that folds out horizontally, and it has soft holders to push the pieces onto, so they don’t touch each other. This case makes it much quicker and easier to access your rods, as you don’t have to slowly feed the sections into a tube. www.trycd.com / www.facebook.com/ Trycd

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WINNER Black Magic Equalizer Twin Pin Pro

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Chasebaits Ultimate Squid 300mm

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The Bluewater series was developed for the hard-core saltwater and game anglers. Every model in the Bluewater series has been rigorously tested and engineered to ensure that they are up to the task of doing battle with some of the oceans largest predators. The new Bluewater Speed Skirt fits into that way of thinking perfectly! The Bluewater Speed Skirts are a highspeed trolling skirt, and as such they are capable of being trolled at speeds of up to 18 knots. With their tolerance to such high speeds, they are absolutely perfect for species such as wahoo, tuna and other high speed pelagics that don’t mind a fast chase! The Speed Skirts come in four great colours, including purple black, lumo green, lumo, an pink. At 240mm and 115g they are a perfect snack size for many offshore predators, and the realistic pattern on the head and skirt itself will fool any hungry offshore predator into striking! www.jmgillies.com.au

Bluewater Speed Skirt

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Following on from the runaway success of the Ultimate Squid, Chasebaits has released a 300mm version. The upsized model has the same ultrarealistic, rolling wing action as the smaller 150mm and 200mm versions, and boasts an incredibly durable TPE construction (10X strong). It can be slow trolled or jigged to great effect on large reef fish, kingfish, tuna and more. Chasebaits recommends matching the 300mm Ultimate Squid with the Ultimate Squid

Rig, whose weight range now covers everything from 3/4oz right through to 9oz. The Ultimate Squid Rig is custom made to suit the Squid perfectly, balancing it so that the wings give off that true squid action. These custom jigheads have offset twin assist hooks and a flash blade (which can be swapped out for a treble or extra assist hook). The heavier models have 9/0 hooks, and the attachment snap is rated to 82kg. Other features include custom 3D squid eyes, custom scent, contracting tentacles and extended candles that flutter with any movement. Price: SRP $19.95 www.chasebaits.com.au

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Mustad 6.5” Pliers

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The Mustad Titanium Plier is Mustad’s newest plier that fits into the elite level Black Line of tools. Built with rugged performance for the toughest conditions, these pliers exude excellence at every turn, especially when chasing trophy fish. With high-quality titanium, an ergonomic design and carbon inserts that support the heavy-duty construction, the pliers allow you to get a strong grip on anything you encounter, and will be a handy addition. On the side of the pliers there is a scissor-style clipper to cut lines without the need to change tools, giving anglers a more complete plier that will serve them for years both on and off the water. Each set of 6.5” Titanium Pliers comes with a premium moulded leather sheath with a lanyard attached, so you will always have your pliers safe and secure when on the water. www.wilsonfishing.com

Black Magic Equalizer Twin Pin Pro

Mustad 6.5” Pliers

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The best just got better, with Black Magic’s new Equalizer Twin Pin Pro. Whether you’re using a bent butt or straight butt rod, it gives you maximum leverage and no restrictions. As the name suggests, the patent pending Twin Pin Pro has two pins, one in the traditional recessed position, and a new pin in the front of the rod bucket. This gives you maximum leverage whether you’re using a straight butt or a bent butt rod, without the need for an adaptor. Simply choose the best pin for your style of rod, and you are fishing without restrictions. To make it even easier to battle that dream fish, you can match the Twin Pin Pro with ever-popular Equalizer harness. The lightweight harness/webbing can be worn all day, then you simply slip on the gimbal in seconds when the fish strikes. It allows you to apply greater pressure on the fish without increasing strain on your back, arms and legs, and it’s also lighter and less bulky than other harnesses, without sacrificing strength. www.blackmagictackle.com

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AFTA FISHING TACKLE, MARINE AND OUTDOOR TRADE SHOW

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Venom Ocean Gladiator

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Venom Ocean Gladiator

Daiwa Spartan S74-4/5

The team at Venom Rods has designed a series of rods to take on the biggest predators in the ocean – the Ocean Gladiator series. Within the range are four rods: a 15kg slick butt stroker, 24kg slick butt stroker, 37kg slick butt stroker and a 60kg bent butt stand up rod for when things are getting serious! All rods in the range feature ALPS Zirconium guides that are constructed from SS316 anti-rust stainless in a one-stamp finish to increase strength and reduce weight. The rods also make use of the ALPS CAH reel seat, a reel seat that is built from marine grade aluminium and presents with a locking centre hood and a newly designed hexagon locking nut for the ultimate in reel security. Of course, the Venom Ocean Gladiator series is built on the high modulus Venom blank, a blank that provides incredible lightness and unparalleled strength. This ensures that while fighting a fish, the angler is not unnecessarily fatigued from fighting the weight of the outfit and can concentrate on using the strength in the Venom blank to dictate terms to the most stubborn of fish. www.wilsonfishing.com

The Spartan rod series brings X45 Cobrashield technology to offshore saltwater rods for the first time, delivering a range of technique specific actions that outcast, outperform ad outclass all others. X45 Cobrashield is 25% more efficient than standard X45 technology, significantly reducing blank twist and distortion. With increased torsional stiffness, Spartan is able to resist blank twist during casting and jigging. The Spartan series also features HVF Nanoplus graphite blanks, 3DX carbon to increase lifting power and V-Joint to increase joint strength. Equipped with Fuji stainless steel SiC guides and reel seats, this battler is offshore ready! There’s 13 rods in the range (10 spin, 3 overhead), and it was the S74-4/6 model that was runner up for Best Game Fishing Rod at the 2019 AFTA show. This model is perfect for many lure casting and jigging scenarios offshore, from GT popping, stickbaiting on reef flats, and even jigging. This model is 224cm long, has a heavy action, breaks down at the butt, and will cast weights from 50-100g! www.daiwafishing.com.au

Daiwa Spartan S74-4/5

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The Smuggler is a water blooping, rattling walker with a very life-like swimming bird action. This new lure has a long tail to simulate tail feathers, a matching head feather, and colours to imitate the most common birds that big fish feed on. As The Smuggler walks, its wings splash and make a very noticeable blooping noise while the wide body action attracts the attention of nearby fish. Designer Grainger Mayfield said the lure took a long time to perfect. “A good walker must have perfect balance and sit well in the water,” he explained, “and the challenge was to combine those qualities with a lifelike bird shape. The Smuggler definitely isn’t your typical rattling walker; we’ve designed it to provide maximum attraction, including a blooping noise that predators can’t resist.” The Smuggler is available now in 65mm and 90mm sizes, and has ultra-strong BKK hooks and an extremely robust body. It comes in six colours, including budgie, black cockatoo and sparrow. To see it in action search for ‘Chasebaits Smuggler’ on YouTube. Price: SRP $26.95 www.chasebaits.com.au

RUNNER UP Barambah Lures Bony Shad

The swimbait craze is still well and truly alive in Australia, and Barambah Lures have continues to push the envelope for innovation and originality! The Barambah Lures Bony Shad is no exception, and is the perfect bait to imitate a bony bream or other herring found in many fresh and saltwater bodies around Australia. The Bony Shad is irresistible on the sink, the lift and the slow wind, making it incredibly versatile, and not just a bait for specific conditions. The Barambah Lures’ original Interchangeable Weight System allows the angler to change up the weight (35 or 48g) and therefore the sink rate of this incredibly life-like swimbait, making it easy to adapt to different situations. At a length of 120mm, or 4.7”, this is the perfect snack size for a hungry Murray cod, barramundi, mulloway, or other big predator that enjoys a decent meal, and it has the hardware to handle it! The six eye-catching lures make it easy to match the baitfish in a variety of areas all over the country. This is an Aussie swimbait for Aussie fish! www.barambahlures.com

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To meet the demands of anglers and the hard-fighting species they target, the pull strength of the new Ocea 8 is up to 25% greater than the previous Ocea EX8 for the same diameter. A premium quality braided line manufactured in Japan, the new Ocea 8 has been designed to match Shimano’s flagship Stella SW and Ocea Jigger series. This line uses Shimano’s exclusive Izansas X-Filament Fibres and ‘Tough Cross’ braiding technology, so it is more manageable in the water and on a reel, and also has increased abrasion resistance. Shimano Exclusive Heat Sink Coating also means any heat build-up from guide friction and drag pressure is evenly distributed to maintain line performance. Ocea 8 is multi-coloured, and available in eight breaking strains from PE 1.5 (30lb) through to PE 10 (139lb), in 300m spools from 30-41lb, 400m spools from 58-137lb) and 500m in 139lb. Price RRP from $139 www.shimanofish.com.au

FINS Fighter PRT Braid RA

When going after big game fish, there’s no replacement for quality, and having quality braid will put you in a much better position to land that fish of a lifetime. Daiwa’s new Saltiga 12 Braid UVF (Ultra Volume Fibre) brings quality to the table and covers just about every casting and jigging situation you can think of, coming in poundages from 13-130lb. Made from UVF and Evo silicone, Saltiga 12 is the ultimate high-density braid, exhibiting supreme abrasion residence and superior strength. A reduced diameter provides an ultra-

smooth surface for less friction/resistance on the guides and spool rim, allowing for longer, smoother casting, less noise, minimal water penetration and incredible sensitivity. Saltiga 12 is the ultimate heavy duty jigging and casting line for big game fish. It’s colour-coded in 10, 5 and 1m increments to allow you full line control, and come in 200m spools from 13-31lb, 300m spools from 36-130lb, ad 44m spools from 100-118lb. Price: RRP from $99 www.daiwafishing.com.au

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Daiwa Saltiga 12 EX UVF PE+Si,

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FINS Fighter PRT Braid differs from the original PRT in that they have improved the resin system that is applied, as well as the method to apply it. This results in a rounder, more abrasion resistant product that has a better strength to weight ratio than the original PRT. Fighter PRT is also somewhat firmer than its predecessor, without being stiff, and this allows for better performance in regards to casting distance and reduces the chances of rod tip wrapping. Features include 100% Spectre Fibre, high strength durability and is a 4-carrier braid. This line is ideal for all tough, predatory fish. Fighter PRT Braid comes in poundages from 10-60lb, in spools of 150yrds (1060lb), 300yrds (20-60lb), 600yrds (20-60lb), 1200yrds (20-60lbs) and 4000yrds (20-60lb). www.jmgillies.com.au

FINS Fighter PRT Braid

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Barambah Lure Fastening System

JOHN DUNPHY AWARD FOR INNOVATION RUNNER UP

Mustad InkVader

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Matt Fraser from Barambah Lures is well known for his timber lures, but he recently made the crossover to production ABS hardbody Lures, all featuring the new Lure Fastening System. “I couldn’t keep up with demand in timber lures,” he explained. “So I went to production lures that are more affordable and can incorporate a heap of innovative features.” Using a built-in stainless steel threaded nut and screw, the Lure Fastening System allows bibs, weights and claws to be easily attached or changed, to quickly adjust a lure’s action, buoyancy or appearance. Topwater lures can be changed from a paddler to a wakebait. The divers can be changed from shallow to deep, and the soft claws of the Hectic Yabbie can be swapped out if damaged, or to change claw colours. The swimbaits have a hidden weight chamber, so you can adjust buoyancy, giving them a depth range from 2-30ft plus! All this is done using a phillips head screwdriver, which comes supplied in the pack. There are nine hardbait models in a range of proven colours. Price: from $34.95 www.barambahlures.com

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Barambah Lure Fastening System

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The 2019 AFTA show was once again oozing with originality and innovation, but Mustad have really taken it to the next level with the amazing new InkVader! The Mustad InkVader is a revolutionary TPE octopus soft bait that is built to look and move like a live octopus. The InkVader even squirts non-toxic and soluble scented ink from tablets that can be added to the head cavity! Whether you’re bouncing the lure off the bottom, slow trolling or slow pitch jigging this lure, the InkVader is the closest thing you’ll ever get to the real thing. The deception is real! The InkVader comes pre-rigged with wickedly sharp Mustad Assist hooks that are forged for extra strength and feature a needlesharp point for ease of penetration. Available in three sizes and 10 weight configurations from 60g through to 340g, the InkVader comes to the market in nine brilliantly natural colours that represent real octopus from around the world! www.wilsonfishing.com

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Mustad InkVader

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Skypoint Link-Micro Camera

Yeti Tundra Haul

The Link-Micro from Spypoint is the easiest-to-use, most affordable, and smallest cellular trail camera available on the market. It’s the answer for everyone who said cellular trail camera technology was too expensive and too complicated. The Link-Micro is a photo-mode only camera, with multi-shot mode capabilities. Given its small size, there is no menu screen for setup, all camera settings are managed in the Spypoint app, where you can also view images. A simple, three-step process activates the Link-Micro using the free app. The app also allows the user to change settings, monitor camera status, and view images from virtually anywhere in the world. The Spypoint Link-Micro uses the 4G network, has a trigger speed of 0.5s, and has a flash range of 80ft. It’s powered by eight AA batteries (not included) and is compatible with the 12V battery kit and the range extending antenna. It’s also backed by Spypoint’s ‘Know you’re covered’ 2-year warranty. For a full list of specifications visit www.spypoint.com. www.jmgillies.com.au

In response to customer demand, Yeti has released a new cooler on wheels, the Tundra Haul, which Yeti says is the toughest cooler on two wheels. The NeverFlat Wheels feature a solid, single-piece tyre construction that is impact- and puncture-resistant. The StrongArm Handle is a durable welded aluminium arm with comfortable grips. The curved design tracks left or right for heel-friendly towing. With rotomoulded construction, this cooler is armoured to the core and virtually indestructible. It has Permafrost Insulation, consisting of pressure-injected commercial-grade polyurethane foam in the walls and lid, so your ice lasts longer. Other features include heavy-duty rubber T-Rex lid latches, robust NeverFail hinge system, and recessed LipGrip handles moulded into the side of the cooler. It measures around 28.5 x 18.5 x 19.5” (72 x 47 x 50cm) and is available in three colours – white, tan and blue. Price: SRP $599.95 au.yeti.com

OUTDOOR/CAMPING PRODUCT CATEGORY

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AFTA FISHING TACKLE, MARINE AND OUTDOOR TRADE SHOW

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BEST REEL WINNER

Yeti Tundra Haul

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Daiwa 19 Certate LT 5000 ARK

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Daiwa 19 Certate LT 5000 ARK

Shimano Stradic FL 2500 HG

The release of the 19 Certate LT combines Daiwa’s most advanced technologies an designs and elevates those traits to a whole new level, with their Light & Tough (LT) concept, reducing reel size while at the same time increasing strength and power. Made in Japan, the foundation of the 19 Certate LT is its aluminium MQ Monocoque body, which eliminates the need for a side plate and allows for a more rigid body and larger gears, for improved winding power and torque. The new super-sized, ultra-strong machine-cut forged Tough Digigear is 2mm larger in diameter than its closest competitor and rotation efficiency is up to 15%, creating an effortless feel when retrieving. Additional feature like a super-rigid stainless steel main shaft, Log Cast Abs spool, Magseal, ATD drag, One-piece Air Bail, new Drag Knob, Perfect Line Stopper, machined Aluminium Air Handle, and Air Rotor make the 19 Certate LT Daiwa’s most advanced Certate ever. Price: RRP from $629 www.daiwafishing.com.au

The new Stradic FL will carry forward most of the Shimano technologies that have made the Stradic series so strong, durable and uncompromising. The Micromodule Gear II ensures that the gears can align and perform with minimal resistance, and SilentDrive technology educes the smallest of clearance gaps and tolerances within the gearing system. The Hagane Gear has been upgraded for added strength and smoothness. On top of all this, X-Protect has also been added to the Stradic FL. The internal labyrinth-type structure gives the reel a superior level of water-resistant performance without impeding the rotation or lightness of the reel. The new Long Stroke Spool has been incorporated to improve casting distance, giving you the ability to cover more water when fishing. The 1000, 2500 and 4000 models have felt washer drags whilst the C3000 and C5000 models have upgraded cross carbon drags. With 6+1 ARC ball bearings, the new Stradic is sure to impress anyone who picks it up. Price: SRP $339.95-$389.95 www.shimanofish.com.au

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Shimano Terez Spin 69MH

TD Commander is a name forged from the beginning of the ‘Team Daiwa’ movement in Japan. The new TD Commander rod series debuts brand new Daiwa X45 Cobrashield technology, bringing this series to the forefront of Australian angling and rod design. X45 Cobrashield takes everything to the next level, and is 25% more efficient than standard X45 technology, significantly reducing blank twist and distortion. Featuring HVF Nanoplus blanks, TD Commander rods feel like nothing in the hand. 3DX further stiffens up the base of the rods near the handle, eliminating unwanted flex. Daiwa’s newest and most advanced Air Sensor reel seats are made from a lightweight carbon infused resin, and represent the pinnacle of reel seat design.Daiwa’s innovative AGS and Fuji TiSic guide train is unique and unparalleled in performance. Titanium framed Fuji SiC guides on the lower section of the rod with AGS guides above, control the line out through the tip, and deliver unmatched sensitivity. Price: RRP from $499 www.daiwfishing.com.au

The legend continues, the new Terez series of rods built on Spiral-X and Hi-Power X blanks are the ultimate saltwater enforcer. This is the most advanced Terez Shimano has built to date. The Terez series of rods has built up tough as nails reputation amongst Aussie anglers. For 2019, the Terez series has been upgraded by the engineers at Shimano and now features the exclusive Spiral-X and Hi-Power X blank technology. Extremely lightweight and powerful, the 23-model line-up features models based on the original Terez series, with additional models based on the actions of the TCurve and Deep Jig models. Shaped EVA grips and custom Shimano reel seats have been incorporated and the blanks are fitted with Fuji BKW Alconite framed guides to ensure durability and performance in saltwater conditions. If you’re serious about offshore fishing, be sure to check out this range of awardwinning and proven saltwater rods from Shimano. Price: RRP from $319.95 www.shimanofish.com.au

Daiwa TD Commander 742 LXS

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Shimano Terez Spin 69MH

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BEST SOFT LURE WINNER

Daiwa TD Commander 742 LXS

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Zerek Weedless Fish Trap

BEST SOFT LURE CATEGORY

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The Phantom Spider looks as good as it fishes. Just like the rest of the Lunkerhunt range, it is incredibly lifelike and a proven performer. It features a hollow body weedless design and walking legs that stride, glide, and twitch as the spider is worked across the water surface. The Phantom Spider features a self-righting ballast in its sternum to ensure a consistent natural action that aligns with the realism of the design. It comes in six colours, which are modelled on real spider patterns, and is sure to draw some curiosity from opportunistic predators. At a length of 2 inches (main torso) and a weigh of 1/4oz, this bait can be comfortably cast on light tackle and is a great snack for bass, bream, trout, sooties and jungle perch. Make sure you grab one and see what all the hype is about! www.ejtodd.com.au

Lunkerhunt Phantom Spider

The Zerek Weedless Fish Trap is a brilliant adaptation to the already amazingly successful Fish Trap! This lure features all the same swimming characteristics as the Fish Trap, but has been uniquely designed to give a weedless presentation. The features include a replaceable single worm hook that is positioned point down to provide exceptional hooking in the bottom jaw, a built-in hook trap to keep the worm hook in place while fishing, the innovative and Zerek-owned crush slits that expose the hook point when fish strike and a construction from the tough TPE material that gives strength and movement to the lure! This means you can fish this lure in exactly the same places and in exactly the same way as you fish your existing Fish Traps, but you can now explore the most snag-ridden places for the most wary and cautious fish that are usually the largest! It means the days of worrying where the snags are in case you lose your lure are finished, and it means that the Fish Trap is still many steps ahead of the competition. 13 colours will be initially available and the

weedless Fish Trap will be available only in the 95mm version for the time being. Brilliance rarely strikes more than once, but here it is! www.wilsonfishing.com

Zerek Weedless Fish Trap

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BEST SUNGLASSES CATEGORY

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Spotters Zane Carbon

Costa Del Mar Rinconcito

The award-winning Spotters Zane is built for performance and style. This is one model that can take you from fishing to fashion in no time at all. The lightweight frame coupled with Spotters’ signature Crown glass lens options combine to create the ultimate pair of sunglasses for both males and females. The Zane is currently available in the following lenses: Photochromic Halide, Photochromic Carbon Grey, Ice (blue mirror), Nexus (green mirror) and CR-39 Grey. Photochromic Carbon Grey is a new option in Spotters’ photochromic range, which includes four lenses that automatically go lighter or darker in response to a combination of UV, general light and temperature. To browse the Spotters range or find your nearest stockist, head to www. spotters.com.au. You can also look them up on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ SpottersSunglasses), follow them on Instagram (@spotterssunglasses) or check them out on YouTube (SpottersTV). www.spotters.com.au

Almost 30 years ago, a group of anglers in Florida had a goal: to design a pair of sunglasses to help them better See What’s Out There. Costa Del Mar have come a long way since those days, but the fact is, their passion hasn’t changed at all. They’re still in Florida, and still happiest when the sun is up and they’re fishing out on the water, just like Australian – and they’re still obsessed with making the best lenses on the planet. Now Costa would like to introduce the little brother to Costa’s Rincon frame, Rinconcito blends West Coast style lines and edgy curved temples. This medium style, named for the iconic Southern California right point break, features bio-resin construction, polarized 100% UV Protection Lenses, integral spring hinges, and Hydrolite nose and temple pads. As anglers, we devote our lives to chasing the most remote places that bring us to life. That’s why Costa developed the best sunglasses in the world to help us reach these soughtafter locales. Because Costas are more than sunglasses, they’re the badge of the explorer. www.rapala.com.au

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Spotters Zane Carbon

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BEST TACKLE MANAGEMENT WINNER

Costa Del Mar Rinconcito

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Wilson Tackle Backpack

BEST TACKLE MANAGEMENT RUNNER UP

Plano Edge Stowaway 500

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Plano Edge Stowaway 500

Wilson Tackle Backpack

Plano have once again stolen the show for tackle management, with their new Edge Master series, and specifically the Crankbait SM taking out top honours. This amazing new concept will change the way people think about lure storage. The Edge Master series has all the same features as the Professional series, along with tackle specific designs. The Edge Master Terminal has unique liftout trays for weights, hooks and small parts. The Crankbait SM and XL have silicone fingers hat protect lures, hooks and finishes. This is the concept that stole the Show at AFTA 2019, and helped them to take out the Best Tackle Management category at the show. These are available in both shallow and deep models. The Jig and Spinnerbait models feature adjustable, removable dividers and side moulded handles. For ultimate protection and longevity for your expensive lures, there’s nothing better than the Edge Master series from Plano! www.jmgillies.com.au

Designed specifically for fishing, the Wilson Digital Camo Backpack offers a host of features to anglers that will make their day fishing just that little bit easier. At the heart of the new system is the side access to the internal cargo area. The side access allows anglers to easily keep the backpack over one shoulder while accessing the internal cargo area. This is great as there is no longer any need to completely remove the backpack while you’re on the water fishing. Other features that excite in this backpack include three tackle trays inside the main cargo area. There are two standard large trays and one large tray that has no dividers for bigger lures such as swimbaits and surface lures. Combined these boxes allow a mountain of tackle to be taken with you. An external sunglass holder and a retractable tool lanyard are also included to make life as simple as it can be on the water. There are also four external zippered pockets for accessories such as leader, fishing gloves and more, as well as two Velcro secured tool holders and a massive front flap with even more storage for things such as plastics, spare hooks and more. The Wilson Digital Camo Backpack really is a complete tackle kit and while it can easily be used while hiking and fishing, this backpack will also serve as a complete kit for your boat or when you’re jumping on someone else’s boat. www.wilsonfishing.com

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BEST TERMINAL TACKLE WINNER

BEST TERMINAL TACKLE CATEGORY

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energy leakage. It’s fully adaptable to all marine batteries, and installation is easy and Yeti SideKick Dry can be completed in less than 15 minutes. ANBI also provides a theft deterrent waterproof gear case by virtually immobilising the vehicle when The SideKick Dry is designed to keep activated. This can result in significant your most important items accessible, savings on insurance premiums. secure, and 100% dry. This waterproof The ANBI Switch is designed and gear case is the worry-free way to carry manufactured in Australia, is anti-corrosive, your keys, wallet and phone safe. and exceeds international standards for salt Some waterproof cases can be fiddly to and sea spray. open and close, but not the SideKick Dry. Its Price: SRP $39.99 Hydroshield Closure uses powerful magnets www.afn.com.au to create a 100% waterproof shield, and it opens and closes quickly and easily. Its tough-as-nails DryHide Shell uses similar materials and construction as high RUNNER UP TIED performance whitewater rafts. It’s completely Scotty Kayak Fishing waterproof and resistant to puncture and UV Starter Pack rays, ensuring Mother Nature won’t touch your valuables, and the RF-welded seams Scotty is recognised as one of the world’s leading manufacturers of rod holder repel any sign of wetness. The SideKick Dry Gear Case Measures mounts. With innovative designs and 18.1cm x 29.8cm x 8.3cm, and is available many versatile mounting options, you’ll in three colours. It’s designed to be secured be able to find the exact combination to any model Yeti Hopper Two, Hopper Flip, you’re looking for. Hopper BackFlip, Camino Carryall or Panga Scotty also caters to beginners. The Kayak Fishing Starter Pack includes a 282 Backpack using the HitchPoint Grid. Baitcaster Spinning Rod Holder with Gear Price: SRP $69.94 Head and Track-Holds a baitcaster reel au.yeti.com securely in the cushioned cradle. RUNNER UP TIED 438 Gear Head Track Adapter-slide the Gear Head into any of our 440 series ANBI Battery Switch track, just twist the gear head clockwise to Even when your ignition key is off, there securely lock. are still components that draw current 440-4 4” Low Profile Track-top load and continue to drain your battery. That’s design allows for quick and easy setup. why it’s common to find it flat when you 311 Drink Holder-fits cans, coffee mugs to go to start a boat or ride-on mower and insulated sleeves mean you can enjoy a after it has been sitting for an extended refreshment while out in the kayak. period. This is both inconvenient and 136 Paddle Clip-holds your paddle, net, costly, as a completely flat dead battery gaff and boat hook. 455 Baitboard and can often become damaged if left Accessory Tray-Exterior tray walls lets you cut bait and prep lures. Also included are uncharged for too long. The ANBI Battery Switch is a simple, your Stainless steel fasteners. high quality, robust solution to solve this If you’re thinking of getting into kayak problem. The Switch eliminates drainage of fishing, make sure you check out the Scotty stored power by isolating the battery from Kayak Fishing Starter pack! power-hungry components, and general www.jmgillies.com.au

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BEST WATERSPORT / DIVING PRODUCT CATEGORY

BEST TERMINAL TACKLE RUNNER UP

Halco Single Strand Wire Traces

Many anglers consider the eye of the baitfish to be a strike trigger to predators, and the eyes on TT Lures’ Big EyeZ make for a big trigger! These premium hand-painted jigheads were created in response to customer requests, and feature a realistic sculptured fish head profile and bulging 3D eyes, as well as the proven ‘head lock’ grub keeper system to make rigging easy, and lock your soft plastic in place. These jigheads are built on brutally strong Mustad black nickel chemically-sharpened hooks for solid hook sets and holding power. These new jigheads are available in a variety of colours, including versions with glow eyes, to complement your favourite soft plastics and match the hatch. Big EyeZ jigheads are available in the following models: 1/4oz 3/0, 3/8oz 3/0, 3/8oz 5/0, 1/2oz 5/0, 3/4oz 7/0, 1oz 7/0. www.tackletactics.com.au

TTs Big EyeZ Jigheads

Halco’s new Single Strand Wire Traces are based around American Fishing Wires premium American-made stainless steel, pre-straightened wire. These new traces come in two lengths and three different breaking strains, giving you plenty of options for a quick, easy trace that you can count on at short notice. There are short 25cm traces for all your shore and boat-based casting needs and longer 50cm traces that should get the trolling crew in the water quickly and with a minimum of fuss, should the toothy brigade turn up. Available in breaking strains of 58lb, 86lb and 105lb, these packs of five individual traces also feature a premium rolling swivel at one end, and Halco’s popular cross lock snaps at the other. They are all beautifully finished with tight and precise haywire twist connections. For more information check out the new Single Strand Wire video on Halco’s YouTube channel. www.halcotackle.com

Scotty Kayak Fishing Starter Pack

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Land ahoy for Louisiana seafood po’boys! BRISBANE

Lynn Bain

A po’boy is a traditional Louisiana sandwich served on a baguette style bread roll. The baguette is associated with French cuisine and the French heavily influenced the foods of Louisiana. The po’boy is filled with seafood of your choice; typically whatever is most abundant. The seafood is normally crumbed and fried, before being served on a bread roll along with lettuce, tomato and a remoulade sauce. In the following recipe, I have used a mixture of fried and steamed scallops. I have used bay (small) scallops but you could substitute

nuggets of fish, peeled prawns or pipis. The seafood should be moist or ‘sticky’ enough to simply coat it in the breadcrumbs without the need for the usual flour, egg, and breadcrumb coating process. You could

Ingredients

substitute cornmeal for the panko breadcrumbs. You can make the remoulade sauce ahead of time and refrigerate until ready to use. If you don’t have horseradish cream, try substituting a small pinch of dried chilli flakes instead.

• 500g bay (small) scallops •2 cups panko breadcrumbs • Cooking oil, such as canola • Lettuce • Sliced tomato • 4 long bread rolls (hot dog style) • 1 cup mayonnaise • 1 clove garlic, finely grated • 2 tbsp tomato ketchup • 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard • 1/2 tsp horseradish cream • 1/2 tsp Cajun seasoning

Divide the scallops into two portions. Coat one portion of the scallops thoroughly in the breadcrumbs and place these coated scallops into the fridge. This will firm up the breadcrumb coating.

Use a bamboo steamer to steam the second portion of scallops. Place the scallops in the upper level of the steamer and pop the lid on the steamer.

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Place the whole steamer into a wok with shallow boiling water. Ensure that the water is below the top level of the steamer. Steam the scallops for no more than three minutes and remove them from the steamer.

Mix the ingredients for the remoulade well and refrigerate until ready to use.

OCTOBER 2019

Slice the bread roll horizontally through the middle. Generously slather both cut sides of the bread roll with the remoulade. Add lettuce and tomato on one of the cut sides and top with a combination of fried and steamed scallops.

When you are ready to deep fry the scallops, heat about 3cm of cooking oil in a wok. Quickly deep fry the scallops until golden brown all over and remove them from the wok. Drain the scallops on a paper towel.

Combine the mayonnaise, garlic, ketchup, mustard, horseradish cream, Cajun seasoning, Tabasco sauce and pickle liquid in a bowl.

Your seafood po’boy is ready to enjoy.

Why we should turn fishing into a sport I find the term ‘sportfishing’ confusing. Why? After all, ‘sportfishing’ comes with rules, scoring systems and all the basic trappings of a sport, why would you not call it a sport. Rules are of course an important part of sport, they define the boundaries and responsibilities of those involved. There is a key missing ingredient though to fishing transcending to being a true sport and that is the regulations. Regulations differ from rules in that they act to define the objectives of the sport, including the pathways into the sport, progression, responsibilities of administrators and umpires and how events become part of the sporting environment. Regulations also define important limitations on key elements such as scoring and equipment and seek to provide a balance between skill, luck and technology. Fishing has overall done a good job and the rules but has been far less successful at the regulations. In the heyday of the club scene there was progress made with national affiliations, rules that provided the foundation for competition as well as state championships that were hard fought and meaningful. At it’s peak the Australian National Sportfishing Association (ANSA) embodied the push to take fishing seriously while recognising the need to balance that with conservation of the resource. It was a powerful combination that defined a generation of fishers. The club structure provided much of the same regulatory structure of other sports. Unfortunately, as time wore on the thing that had been the strength of ANSA, its passionate base of volunteer members became its greatest weakness as the baby boomers aged, lost their competitive drive and slowly drifted away. ANSA is still an important part of the fishing scene and is a foundation member of ARFF but as a base for competition it only enjoys a stronghold in a single state and is a shadow of its glorious heyday. The Game Fishing Association of Australia (GFAA) is even older, hailing back to 1938. GFAA is based on the rules developed by the International Game Fishing Association and has probably enjoyed a lesser decline due to its niche of game fishing, a high octane form of fishing that requires big investments and even bigger fish to match. Australia currently holds 538 world records through the IGFA, a good many of them by GFAA members, many standing for decades. While taking big fish has become less acceptable to the wider community there is little doubt that the skill and tenacity

required to master a massive shark or marlin should be recognised amongst the greatest sporting feats. After all, strip away the trappings of modern technology, drop a person in their territory and let’s see who takes home who for dinner. That is not to say that I am an advocate for the mass slaughter of big fish in the name of sport, but the reality is that the game fishing community have fished responsibly for decades and the hugely successful fish tagging program based in NSW stands as testimony. I am not going to admonish someone who has secured victory in the battle of man over beast and bought his prize home for all to see. Nature loves a winner. Rightly so, it’s not called survival of the fittest for nothing. During the decline of the club scene a new set of tournaments sprung up based on the American BASS rules. This new competitive format revolved around live weigh-ins and limited bags as an ethical alternative to the traditional weigh-in. This format combines all the flash of fish on the podium while ensuring they all get to fight another day, provided they are handled with care. The biggest exponent of this new format the Australian Bass Tournaments (ABT) became the dominant format in the post ANSA/ club universe, hoovering up competition fishers with a combination of showmanship, press coverage and rules unencumbered by decades of amendments. With its ‘who shares wins’ philosophy ABT in particular defined itself to stand out in a fishing world dominated by secrecy. The GFC however seemed to mark another point of change but may also just be a generational shift as well. As the 2000s rolled on into the 2010s though the competition market started to fracture more and more as the dominant monoliths of the industry gave way to a myriad of one-off events and series, each seeking to differentiate itself in the market. With the decline of the of the bigger players, out went standards and now we are faced with an ever-increasing array of competition formats, driving the fishing pastime further and further from being a true sport. If there’s one thing ABT should have bought forward, but only did in a limited way, it’s competitor profiles. Despite a decade of data, there is still far less real data available on fishers performance than their should be. With each new arena, you would think a decade of data would see nominated favourites, yet at best favouritism is defined by a loose combination of scuttlebutt on performances

during the year intersecting with the collective memory of who won in the past. There are few real metrics to guide us. ANSA and GFAA run a set of state and national records that stretch back decades and form the closest thing fishing has to Cricinfo, but if there is one area the fishing lets down a sports tragic like me it’s definitely in the stats department. One of the things that defines modern sports is the multitude of measures used to define and separate competitors. This comes at two levels, information to the public that seeks to best describe the performances of players and the even more detailed layer the forms the tactical foundation of the modern sports team. Mathematicians have had a field day in the past decade, commanding ever more luscious salaries as the data pumping devices that track athletes demand ever more nuanced analysis. We are no longer in the game of gaining percentage performance improvements, we are in the era of a matrix of performance indicators, from personal history to elite performance markers that now defines a players role. Fishing has taken an abominably long time to define the most basic of metrics. Sure, most fishers would have a sense of what they need to do in terms of bags, but short of time on the water, there are no real tools to assess let alone define a performance. That might not seem like much of a problem, but when it comes to accessibility to a wider world you need the language of maths to make sense of things. How good is Steve Smith? While the likes of Warney and company can wax lyrical about the poetry of his shot making, it’s two numbers that truly define him as a player. First is one of the most beautifully flawed numbers this side of pi, Don Bradman’s batting average of 99.94, a single boundary short of perfection, but probably more memorable due to its imperfection. The second is Smith’s current average of 64.81, the second best in the history of test cricket. If Bradman’s figure is forever marked by his inability play one ball, it’s still the mark by which all others are measured. It’s not how good you are that defines you, but how others are measured against you. Why make the transistion to a sport? First up I should address the key reason why being a sport is even important at all and here is a simple reason – it’s time to complete what the clubs started. The disadvantage of the current system, first and foremost, is it entrenches the

unfairness of fishing. To be competitive in any circuit is hard work, but fishing conspires in many ways to make that even worse, from home ground advantages to differences in equipment, to points systems. Moreover, the diversity of systems makes assessment of performance impossible. What defines a true sport? ‘Sport’ seeks to minimise the differences in the environment and equipment such that the skill and ability of the competitor is maximised. If you equalise the playing variables, all the unfairness accumulates in the heady mix of genetics, brains and brawn that is the competitor. All sport is unfair, we just want it to be unfair because one team or person is better than the others, not because they had better equipment or because the rules suit their fishing method. A few years back swimming tried out an exercise with flirting with unfairness beyond muscle and sinew with disastrous effect. A number of companies started a technological war producing swimsuits that resulted in drastic improvements in times, sending long-standing world records tumbling. Needless to say, it didn’t last. Unlike most sports there is no clean progression. There is no joining the E grade team and working your way up the ladder. There is no weekend tournament series leading to a final. For parents who don’t fish, there is no easy way to get their kids into the sport where they can learn skills, receive training and learn the tactical and time management side of competing. Everyone has to learn on the run. In other words, where most sports have an organised ecosystem that supports players, in fishing you are on your own. While I admire the strength of character this leads to, in reality this is the greatest limiter in terms of growth in the ‘sport’. WHAT DOES FISHING AS A SPORT LOOK LIKE I have spent a lot of time analysing data on competition different systems to get a sense of how they all work, and their relative merits as a sport. The traditional measure of fishers is the biggest fish, but I think catch rates are every bit as important particularly if you are aiming to build an audience. Cricket compressed its format more than once to limit the resources, increase the risks and maximise the rewards from taking risks. This in turn created more excitement for the audience. I have used fish/minute as a yardstick for events for some time and increasingly discussed using time as a key part of the format by limiting more and more the time available. Reducing the time, increases the risk taking which

in turn increases the innovation and excitement. This is a lesson fishing could learn. Is there an existing system that works, or do we start again? The objective is to equalise the outcomes as much as possible and statistically the bag system is the one that equalises outcomes the most, because the bag acts as a limiter on the best fishers. Bags of five work best because this acts both as a target and separator. As a target, a five bag takes some skill to obtain while motiving fishers to keep fishing for upgrades. I did an analysis of the ABT data around three years ago, which established that the combination of ‘who shares wins’ and bag limits have all but eliminated the home field advantage for boaters. While the same can’t be said for non-boaters, that is an artefact of the way non-boaters typically only compete in events in locations nearer to where they live. The five bag is also a good indicator of the quality of the fishing arena, in general the greater the proportion of fishers complete their bag, the better the arena. In other words the five bag provides data that is relatable to the lay person on more than one measure. As such, I think that the ABT is the closest series we have as a sport, not least because it uses weight, not length as a foundation. While I know that length is considered the modern measure, especially with the evergrowing importance of catch and release fishing, weight is still an easier measure for non-fishers to follow. We run a number of length-weight events on the Track My Fish app, so there is no impediment to using weight as a measure. I’m an advocate for the mix of live weigh-in and app or photo-based entries. Both offer different experiences to fishers and audience alike, but with a common measurement system both can be deployed allowing fishers flexibility in competing all the while ensuring consistent standards are enforced. WHAT SPECIES? Every fisher is going to have a favourite species or an opinion on targets, but in this case I am just looking at equalisation. Which species have the potential to sustain a large organised sports version of fishing? Here my main consideration is access in terms of location, universal spread and craft (eg kayaks). I have three species on my list, bream, bass and barramundi. Bream are a logical choice, because they are found in one form or another in almost all locations. Bass are an inland/impoundment alternative, while barramundi are key competition species across the northern half of

Australia and cover areas where bream are not as common or widely targeted. All three are relatively hardy and with good handling have excellent survival rates on release. EVENING THE PLAYING FIELD There are some things that definitely need to be clearly defined, such as tackle and technology standards. Bass boats with big motors have a huge advantage, especially in barra comps where mobility is key. Similarly, expensive sidescan units can reduce the time taken to locate fish by a significant measure and provide an edge over other competitors. This has to be addressed, but I don’t think that banning technology will work. Ultimately, a handicap system will probably be required with some objective data collected on how much of a real difference these technologies make. In this case I don’t think that a weight-based handicap is appropriate so much as a time penalty. Most of these innovations provide time/ efficiency benefits and thus a time penalty in the form of a later start or earlier finish would compensate for that. In other words you want the fast motor and best electronics, you get less time to fish and then if you can make up the time – good on you. BRINGING IT TOGETHER This is the trickiest but most necessary step. The transition to a sport doesn’t require the creation of new events, so much as the myriad of existing events to aggregate under a national platform, rules set and regulations, much as cricket, soccer and other sports have. This aggregation would need to provide a national register of competitors and a national tracking process so that competitors can easily carry their results with them. This is a big challenge when egos are involved. One of the key elements of that aggregation would be a national body with five key responsibilities – tracking and managing competitors, establishing formal recognition for fishing as a sport, providing state and national championships, coaching and athlete recognition, developing a sponsorship funding base and of course promoting the new sports option. Of course, this is a lot of work, but I think it’s about time fishing takes itself seriously enough to go through the growing pains that come with offering a true sport option. It won’t come without compromise, but most sports that have made that leap have never looked back. OCTOBER 2019

Taylor terrorises bream at brand new arena As a company, Shimano is known for its green credentials. There are many versions of its Green Procurement Policy, which means that all of their raw ingredients and suppliers of raw ingredients aren’t using substances that are dangerous – for staff, customers or the environment. Its company mission is “to promote health and happiness through the enjoyment of nature and the world around us.” It was a no-brainer then for Shimano, through their brand Squidgies, to sign up to be the naming sponsor of the first ever ABT BREAM event to be run on the ABT Tournament Series app. As such, 28 of Australia’s keenest bream anglers tackled a new ABT bream arena to not only fight it out for thousands of dollars worth of cash and prizes, but also to contribute towards the community monitoring of the area’s bream populations. Every bream caught was recorded – whether they were yellowfin or pikey – by taking a photo on the official ABT ruler and weights were

TRISTAN TAYLOR’S WINNING TACKLE Rod: Reel: Line: Lure:

Triston Taylor complied a great winning bag of mostly pikey bream and as it turns out, he likes these dark, brutish battlers… really likes them! calculated with length-weight curves for each species. The photos were then used by the Gladstone Healthy Harbours Partnership to help monitor the disease status of the specimens caught. With an aim of 300 bream for the event, anglers took advantage of the excellent fishing in the arena to tally nearly 500 fish through the app. Over 350 of these were on the tournament days, with the others caught on the practice day.

The result? Happy anglers, happy scientists and an arena that promises to be one of ABT’s best in coming years. Brisbane breamer Tristan Taylor is having quite a year on tour. After a couple of third place finishes at the start of the season on the Victorian leg, Taylor committed to ‘having a go’ at the Angler of the Year (AOY) title and hasn’t looked back. His win at Gladstone was his second in two starts and he would have never dreamed

that his two Victorian third placings would end up being the worst of his five events that count towards his final point score. Mathematically, Charlie Saykao could have won AOY with an unlikely combination of finishes, but Taylor slammed the door on his first national AOY title with only 7/8 qualifying rounds completed. Both of his bags were dominated by dark, pikey bream, which he tempted

BOATER RESULTS Place Name 1 Tristan Taylor 2 Peter Cashman 3 Steve Morgan 4 Denis Metzdorf 5 Charlie Saykao 6 Wally Fahey 7 Alan Lister 8 Michael Thompson 9 Stephen Wilson 10 Craig Templar

Total Fish Total Weight (kg) Prize 10 5.76 $1500 + $500 (Big Bream) 10 5.1 $750 10 4.67 $500 + $500 Mercury Bonus 10 4.54 $300 Mercury Bonus 10 4.01 $200 Mercury Bonus 10 3.36 Shimano Outfit (Smallest Fish) 8 2.7 8 2.61 Shimano Outfit (Pre-fish Champion) 7 2.59 10 2.42

Visit www.abt.org.au for entry forms. For general enquiries phone ABT on (07) 3387 0888 84

OCTOBER 2019

Samurai Reaction 201 2500 Megabass reel 6lb Unitika braid with 6lb leader Ecogearaqua Bream Prawn in white rigged weightless, 2.5” ZMan GrubZ in motor oil rigged on Atomic Seekerz jighead

using two different patterns. His main deal involved casting a 2.5” motor-oil coloured ZMan GrubZ, rigged on an Atomic Seekerz jighead, into the current-licked rock banks in clear water in Gladstone Harbour proper. With hook-ups happening within close proximity of the snaggy shore, fights were brutal, short and not all of them ended in Taylor’s favour. Rotating between a milk run of suitable spots, Taylor easily completed his virtual bag, logging a limit in less than two hours. It was a couple of kicker fish that distanced him from the rest of the field on the first day though. Fishing a ferry dock in the northern harbour, one of the few pieces of artificial structure allowed in the complex arena, Taylor mined a couple of great bream, including the Daiwa J-Braid Big Bream of 1.1kg, by casting an unweighted Ecogearaqua at the floating structure.

And he did it with an audience. The highlights video (scan QR Code hereby) shows the excitement of fishing with excited onlookers. An Atomic sponsored angler, Taylor coupled his favourite Samurai Reaction rod with a 2500 size Megabass reel spooled with Unitika braid and 6lb leader to win more of the fights than he lost. Leaving day one with a 500g lead on the rest of the field, he was confident that he could replicate the numbers, if not the size of his day one bag. With a strengthening nor’westerly wind on day two, many anglers struggled in open areas of the arena. Taylor wasn’t immune to the tightening of weights. His 2kg class bag was a little over half his first day haul, yet it was ample to take the win, $2,000 in prize money and have his name etched in the record books as the first breamer to win an app-only bream qualifier.

Scan the QR code to see the Tristan Taylor interview.

Scan the QR code to see the Stuart Walker interview.

BREAM Series presented by

Cashman cheques in at Gladstone Peter Cashman was anoth er B r i sba ne breamer who cashed in at Gladstone. Cashman wasn’t deterred by the thought of a challenge, and spent time on Google Earth and re-watched AFC Series 10 to gain an insight to the new arena. Following a pre-fish day laden with by-catch and some promising action on the bream in the Calliope River, Cashman decided to head straight back there. Throughout the tournament, Cashman mostly used a rotation of ZMan plastics rigged on light jigheads to fish the structure in the Calliope River, and chose to fish these on his GLoomis DSR820 and Daiwa 2000 Sol set-ups spooled with 10lb Sunline Castaway braid and 6lb FC Rock leader. With a steady procession of by-catch

The second place boater Peter Cashman sifted through a lot of by-catch to put together a quality bag in Gladstone’s huge arena. and a mixture of yellowfin and pikey bream gracing his deck, Cashman was able to slowly put together respectable bags on both days, but struggled as Taylor did on day two with

the windy conditions. Cashman’s by-catch included Moses perch, estuary cod, javelin fish and trevally. It seems catching a fish wasn’t the challenge: it was just

catching the target species that proved difficult. An issue with Cashman’s day one non-boater Andrew Williams’ app saw him entering all fish caught that day, which he believes gave him good karma for day two! The big new arena meant he could focus his attention on several areas at different tidal stages, and he stuck religiously to the game plan he put together on pre-fish. With his rotation of ZMan soft plastics, he found myself mostly using heavier than usual jigheads to stay in touch with the lure in the strong winds, which plagued anglers for the whole tournament but got worse on day two. Cashman noted that he lost a lot of jigheads due to the rocky terrain he spent most of his time fishing, and a fair few bust-offs left him wondering what could have

Walker walks it in yet again Stuart Walker is to bream fishing tournaments what the All Blacks are to world rugby: virtually unbeatable, bullying and speaks with a New Zealand accent. Jokes aside, the diminutive and incessantly polite Walker is arguably the most dominant angler ABT has seen in any species at any time. His Gladstone win from the back of the boat sealed his 5th consecutive non-boater AOY title, a feat that’ll be ridiculously difficult to surpass in the foreseeable future. Like Taylor, he made it mathematically impossible for the rest of the field with an event to spare. Armed with his trademark tackle, his command of a ZMan GrubZ on a TT jighead is bordering legendary and there’s more than a quiet fist-pump when a boater draws him in the sharedweight Grand Final each year. Walker spent the two

tournament days fishing opposite sides of the mouth of the Calliope River. On day one he amassed 2.31kg, enough to slot him into third place. On the Sunday though, he switched gears and added another half-kilo to that tally, registering 2.80kg for his top five fish and sealing a splendid victory by just under 2kg. Walker has showed off

his winning combo in many interviews. The Daiwa Silverwolf 2-4kg rod and matching reel, loaded with 6lb 8-strand Daiwa braid and leader is a constant companion in a winner’s interview (scan the QR Code to watch his). Walker’s main advice for non-boaters who want to attain his consistency? Persistence.

“You never know when that bite window will be. I caught all of my weight in half an hour when the fish were on [in the] morning and you don’t do that when your line is in or you’re mucking around re-rigging,” he offered. It’s sage advice from the best there is on the rear deck. Additionally, Walker

been. With this in mind, he took solace in the probability that many of these may have been the angry tropical by-catch species that also plagued other anglers for the tournament. Cashman added three important fish to the bag on other techniques, which include crankbaiting with a Jackall Chubby, finesse fishing with a Gulp Shrimp and working over the top of snags with an O.S.P. Bent Minnow.

BREAM SERIES

With full bags both days, Cashman was able to amass a solid 10/10 fish limit of 5.10kg, and slid nicely into second place.

DAIWA J BRAID BIG BREAM

Taylor added $500 and a swag of Daiwa J-Braid to his kit with a 36.5cm, 1.1kg pikey. It ate a weightless rigged white Ecogearaqua, which was sight cast to the brute. Originally thinking it was a blubberlip, he quickly upped the ante when he realised it was a monster pikey! See the day one highlights video for the full capture. won a Squidgies rod and Shimano Nasci reel/ Kairiki braid combo by also amassing the smallest limit of bream for the weekend, which could be

Scan the QR code to see the Day 1 highlights.

calculated through his use of the app! His 5/5 for 0.56kg (derived from the app curves) bookended a commanding weekend of breamin’.

Scan the QR code to see the Day 2 highlights.

Stuart Walker (left) seems to be absolutely unstoppable, even at a venue where he has no previous tournament experience! Him and his boating counterpart Tristan Taylor (right) have had a stellar tournament season.

NON-BOATER RESULTS Place Name

Total Fish Total Weight (kg) Prize

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

10 9 7 10 5 7 10 9 7 9

Stuart Walker Jordan Armstrong Brendan Mcnamara Travis Ryan Andrew Williams Richard Wootten Sam Peck Tani Konsul Justin Reeves Glen Sturrock

5.11 3.32 3.01 2.84 2.74 2.62 2.57 2.21 2.12 1.86

$200 Hobie Bonus + Shimano Outfit (Smallest Bag) $100 Hobie Bonus $75 Hobie Bonus

It wasn’t all pikey bream at the Gladstone event, with some quality yellowfin also logged into the app. OCTOBER 2019

Copper captures win at Cania Matt Johnson has proved once again that he is a SEQ Impoundment specialist, taking yet another win in the Sufix ABT BASS Pro series. Matt is a resident Ipswich Police Officer, but fishes Cania Dam often despite it being over five hours drive away. He says it’s one of his favourite dams to fish. In the pre-fish, Johnson had some spots in mind that he had fished in a tournament only two weeks before. He set out to look at some weed edges he had caught fish from, and upon catching a good fish straight up, he decided to leave those areas for comp day. He went in search of some back up spots on the flats just inside the timber, where he also found fish, just not the size he felt would win comp. On day one, Johnson and his non-boater went straight to that weed edge. He picked up where he left off two weeks earlier, catching his five fish really quickly fishing a 67mm Jackall Squirrel jerkbait by ripping and pausing the lure along the weed face.

WINNING TACKLE Rod Reels Lure Line

Matt Johnson (right) is very much at home fishing in the weedy and timbered waters of Cania Dam. It was on the pause that he would get bit. He was only happy with one of them, which left him wondering if his jerkbait pattern from two weeks ago may have changed. He then set off to a flat just inside the trees and sat in 20-25ft, where he found a nice patch of fish. He manly used an Imakatsu IK 800, which is

a super deep crankbait, and by making a big cast, he could rip the lure down on the first couple of turns, then just slow roll it back through the suspended fish. This technique can be deadly in SEQ dams at this time of year, and proved to be this day, with Johnson upgrading eight times. He made it to the scales

with five bass for 6.39kg. On day two the weather had changed and was a lot colder, and Matt said that was that reason he didn’t go back to the flat that produced on the previous day. Matt is a jerkbait addict and knew the bigger fish would be sitting back in the weed. With that in mind, he set out in search

Lew’s Super Duty Custom Cast Rod 7’11 Medium, Barrabass 7’ custom spin Lew’s BB1 Pro Spool bait cast, Lew’s Custom spin 2000 Jackall Squirrel 61, 67 and 79mm, Imakatsu IK-800 R2 Sunline Siglon 10lb and 12lb, 12lb Sunline V-Hard Leader

of shallow weedy banks that he had not seen other boats on. He and his non-boater Dylan Byron dropped a fish each early, and they both knew how costly that was, as on this day they knew they wouldn’t get many opportunities. From here, Matt just put his head down and worked his butt off, rotating his three key baits, being the 61, 67 and 79mm Jackall Squirrels. He fished them by working them down the weed edges in no more than 8ft of water. Matt only got five more bites, but by making them stick he filled his limit of five fish, finishing with

Scan the QR code to see Matt Johnson Interview. 6.54kg and total weight of 12.93kg. This proved enough to take the win at the 2019 Sufix BASS Pro Bass Cat Boats round at Cania Dam.

BOATER RESULTS Place Name 1 Matt Johnson 2 Matthew Langford 3 Graham Ford 4 David Nelson 5 Jonathan Bale 6 Adrian Melchior 7 Greg Mitchell 8 Jake Schwerin 9 Keeghan Painter 10 Brett Hyde

Total Fish Total Weight (kg) Prize Money 10/10 12.93 $2,500 10/10 11.86 $1,500 10/10 11.42 $1,250 + $250 Evinrude Bonus 10/10 10.88 $1000 10/10 10.61 $800 10/10 10.60 $650 10/10 10.00 $600 10/10 9.99 10/10 9.96 9/10 9.46

Visit www.abt.org.au for entry forms. For general enquiries phone ABT on (07) 3387 0888 86

OCTOBER 2019

Cania is a great fishery that offers big bass like this that respond to a variety of techniques, as these two winners proved!

Bass Pro Series presented by

Langford guides himself to runner up Matt Langford lives in the South Burnett region, which isn’t far from Cania, and he also is a fishing charter operator and occasionally takes clients onto this wonderful lake, so you could say he knows this body of water pretty well! On day one Langford went up the back of the dam where he knew of some shags were nesting, targeting the area below with a topwater lure on one rod and jerkbait on another. He went to work on what he knew would be a short window of fish feeding under the nests. He picked up a good fish on a popper, followed by another on a Daiwa Double Clutch, and with that second fish the bite was done. He headed to some weed edges that are part of his milk run, fishing a Nories Laydown Minnow

(deep) and a Jackall Squirrel 61mm jerkbait, casting his lure tight to the weed and even ripping it free, and this was triggering bites. Doing this he landed a further six fish, and dropping a big one in the process. All up he ended up having a great first day, weighing five bass for 6.93kg and was sitting in first place overnight. On the second day Matty gave his good mate Mick Johnson his shag trees and went straight to fishing the weed edges the same way he had on day one. Day two, however, was totally different, and while his non-boater Luke Gilbert caught a nice fish early, no other fish came from this area, Matty had not even had a bite! His hope was starting to fade by the minute, and it wasn’t until about 10am that he headed out to the flats in

Matty Langford used his experience guiding on the lake to secure second place. You could say he knows the dam pretty well! search of schooled fish. He found a decent school, and so had a few other boats,

but most simply couldn’t get them to eat. His mate Barry

Reynolds was non-boating next to him, and gave him a pack of assist hooks that

hat some tinsel and fur on them, and told Matty to put them on a spoon. Matty did so, and began casting the new tricked up spoon, sinking it to the bottom and slowly hopping it before stating a slow retrieve. Almost immediately, he pulled up tight to a fish! Before too long, he and his non-boater were upgrading. Unfortunately they weren’t the size he needed to keep first place, with a weight of 4.93kg and total of 11.86kg, which had him finishing second by just over a kilo.

‘Pylon’ stands firm to take non-boater win Dylan ‘Pylon’ Byron hails from the Sunshine Coast and loves his bass fishing, and is also the 2018 ABT Non-Boater Angler of the Year, so he is a handy non-boater to have aboard in the shared weight system. The first day saw Byron paired with Dayne Price, and their first area was The Quay. They chose to fish in anywhere from 20-40ft with spoons. The pair would make long casts and let the spoons sink to the bottom, varying retrieves between hopping, burning or slow winding back to the boat. Catching a limit there after a while, the bite slowed and they moved over to a spot near the dam wall where they found suspended fish in around 30ft of water. With the fish holding anywhere from 20-15ft, once again casting spoons through them they found these were much better-sized fish and upgraded their whole limit of five bass, coming to the scales with a solid day one

He spent the rest of the day, as he said, watching a guy in the zone showing him a jerkbait masterclass, but was a gun with the net. They

came back with five fish for 6.54kg, giving him a total weight of 12.01kg and his first win of the 2019 Suffix BASS Pro series.

GARMIN BIG BASS Steve Kanowski took out the $500 Garmin big Bass with a 1.81kg Cania monster caught on a ZipBaits Trick Shad 70 SP 509 blue gill.

Non-boating powerhouse Dylan Byron managed a great win in his respective division, contributing to his boaters’ efforts throughout the tournament. bag of 5.47kg For day two Dylan was heading out with Matt Johnson and they went

straight to some shallow weed edges fishing jerkbaits, twitching and pausing them down the weed face. While

Dylan did hook a good fish early, unfortunately it buried him in the weeds and he lost it.

NON-BOATER RESULTS Place Name 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Dylan Byron James Hickson Geoff Newby David Simmons Matthew Gilbert Bill Rose Troy Lowe Trent Blake Jacob Luck John Francis

Total Fish Total Weight (kg) Prize 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10

12.01 11.84 11.71 11.14 10.71 10.34 9.77 9.72 9.59 9.33

Bassman Prize Pack + Sufix Bonus Fishtec Prize Pack Tackle Tactics Prize Pack Sufix Prize Pack Daiwa Prize Pack Sunline Prize Pack Keitech Prize Pack Lucky Craft Prize Pack Ecogear Prize Pack Shimano Prize Pack

Scan the QR code to see highlights from Cania. OCTOBER 2019

Venom decides to stay and play at BARRA Open From inception to presentation, the Venom Rods BARRA Australian Open, which was held on a rebounding Lake Awoonga in September, is sure to be the genesis of the next generation in BARRA events for ABT. Barra are caught, measured on the official measuring mat and the scoreboard calculates a weight based on Queensland DPI lengthweight curves generated over samples of thousands of impoundment fish. Featuring full live scoreboard coverage, an uncluttered mid-week format and a near 200% payback percentage, the 14 teams competing all knew they were a part of something special. VICTORY FOR VENOM Troy Dixon and Adam Meredith of Team Venom were able to secure victory for this first ever ABT BARRA Open, and they were part of the process from the start. It took Venom Rods, a brand of the Brisbane-based tackle manufacturer and importer Wilson Fishing, about five minutes to secure the naming rights to this event after it was tabled as a way to incorporate the rebounding southern barra dam fisheries. The idea was conceived while driving back from the 2018 Zerek BARRA Tour – an event also underwritten by Wilson Fishing. “Kord says that we want it, don’t talk to anyone else,”

Team Venom’s Troy Dixon and Adam Meredith look to be struggling under the weight of that winner’s trophy, or maybe they’re just excited to have won $5000 for going barra fishing – that’s one spicy meatball! said Wilson’s marketing manager Stephen Booth, just minutes after the initial phone call. The decision ended up more beneficial than initially envisaged. “We were hoping for 20 boats in the inaugural BARRA Open,” said ABT Director Steve Morgan, “but with the level of coverage this event offered, 10-100 boats would have the same result – a fascinating event to watch from the sidelines.” Another phenomenon in ABT events is the intervention of karma. We see it time and time again where a naming sponsor or their sponsored angler goes on and wins their pet event. It happens multiple times

every year, and the BARRA Open was no exception. Team Venom took an early lead after the first day and never relinquished it, as conditions remained challenging for all competitors over the three days. The team didn’t register a full five-fish limit for any of the three days, yet they were consistent and landed enough big barra bites to get the job done by a 10kg margin. Traditionally, barramundi like stable weather, and the week leading up to the event had constant warm days, firing up the barra. The open featured strong, fluctuating winds, a cold snap and a

barra bite that was feastor-famine for most of the competitors. This really brought the cream to the

explained. “There were laydowns everywhere and there were places where we literally couldn’t get the boat into if we had to chase a fish.” The gully they fished on the western side of the main basin had large amounts of standing and fallen timber. Team Venom used a variety of lures to tempt their barra, but refined them to a lightlyweighted and weedless paddle-tailed soft plastic presentation to achieve maximum fishability in their chosen area. Adam Meredith preferred a baitcast presentation, favouring a Daiwa Zillion HD baitcaster loaded with 30lb Sufix 832 braided line and a 50lb Wilsons FC leader on a Venom 2-4kg, 6’3” baitcast rod. On this, he cast a Keitech Fat Swing Impact (4.8” in gold flash minnow) and a Castaic Jerky J (5” in ayu).

while proudly displaying the perennial trophy at his workplace, Brisbane’s Tackle Warehouse. “We tried the rig with and without the blade, and blade-on definitely got us more bites.” Dicko, however, preferred a threadline outfit, using a Venom VS8 rod (7’ long) and 4000 ATC spinning reel loaded with 30lb Zerek HiBraid and 40lb Wilson FC leader. A couple of colours of the SureCatch 11cm HollowFish worked best for him, with both the chartreuse and pearl/ white rigged on the same weedless Owner J Flashy Swimmer set-up. “We landed two barra for every one we lost, so the ratio could have been much worse in the area we were fishing,” Dicko said. “We’d get to the spot and tie up to one tree at the front, one tree at the back and do our best to get the fish

The anglers met at the Tackle World in Gladstone for the briefing before the first session.

Brett Turner and Brett Bliesner of team Bretts World managed to land barra on all three days of the tournament and just snuck into third place.

top, and while some teams opted to run and gun their milk run of potential spots, others chose to stay and play in one area that they thought held fish. This was Troy and Adam’s plan for all three days of competition. “We found a couple of places where we caught fish in practice, but the one we chose for the tournament was dead set nasty,” Dicko

“I really think that the 5/0 Owner Flashy Swimmer worm hook with the 1/4oz weight helped us hook the fish,” Adam said,

out when they stitched us up. We didn’t want to keep going in there and spooking the fish, because I think that hurt our pattern.”

VENOM BARRA AUSTRALIAN OPEN RESULTS Place Team 1 VENOM 2 SUNCOAST MARINE ELECTRICAL 3 BRETTS WORLD 4 DOBYNS/SUNLINE 5 HAPPY ROCK SOFTIES 6 JOINT EFFORT 7 EXTREME SECRET SPOT 8 GET-A-GRIP 9 LOWRANCE LIKELY LADS 10 SILVER ROLL HOLE 88

OCTOBER 2019

Total Fish 11/15 9/15 4/15 8/15 4/15 3/15 5/15 4/15 1/15 2/15

Total Weight (kg) 37.57 27.35 21.68 21.36 16.7 16.07 14.6 11.33 6.14 6.08

Adam Meredith holds up one of the barra Team Venom managed to get out of the gnarly country on display in the background.

Woods’ second day cost a title shot The runners-up at the event were Rob and Tommy Woods from Suncoast Marine Electrical. Rob and Tommy employed the opposite strategy from Team Venom – running and gunning half a dozen spots in rotation during each session to amass their fish. Tapping into the aforementioned sponsorkarma, the pair had a pair of 7’ Venom spin rods on board that they paired with 5000 size ATC reels to help

deliver their jerkbaits to the strike zone. The preferred bait was a 79mm Jackall Squirrel Hank Tune in a variety of natural colours. They ran them on 30lb Sufix braid and 40lb Wilson FC leaders. “We went through at least half a tank of fuel per session running our spots, and we hit them at different times and conditions to try to pin down the best pattern,” Rob said. Indeed, when they hit the right place at the right

time it was a bonanza. They logged nine fish on the first day and a sole fish on the second. That second day eventually took them out of contention for the win, but they were still happy with $1,000 cash and a pair of Venom baitcast rods for their second place showing. MORE TO COME The Venom BARRA Australian Open promises to be a rising star in the east coast barra tournament calendar. There was an amazing amount of interest in the format, and the event reached tens of thousands of people via the website and through social media. Expect to see it on ABT’s calendar again in 2020 – the dates will be released at the end of 2019!

Father and son duo, Rob and Tommy Wood of team Suncoast Marine Electrical, are no strangers to barra fishing and managed good bags on day one and three to secure second place.

Tommy Wood demonstrates that Awoonga is well and truly on the way to once again becoming the premier impoundment barra fishery in Queensland – small fish will one day be big fish, and they grow fast in dams!

Troy Dixon simply loves barra, big or small, especially when they help him and his teammate win $5000 and a big heavy trophy! OCTOBER 2019

Trades, Services, Charter BOAT MODIFICATION & REPAIRS

BAIT & TACKLE

MARINE ELECTRONICS

Boat Collar (07) 5441 3636 CMC Marine Sales 0409 910 808 Iconic Boats Brisbane 0475 311 447 Marine Windows and Doors Brisbane (07) 3284 5088 Small Craft Electrics (mobile) 0408 063 064

Allfly Outfitters – 0428 615 885 Alvey - www.alvey.com.au Bait Tackle Store - www.baittacklestore.com Barambah Lures - www.barambahlures.com Bayside Bait & Tackle – 07 3820 9757

MARINE ELECTRONICS SALES • REPAIRS • INSTALLATIONS

MARINE MECHANICS

C & Horsey Lures - 07 3275 1881 Chilton Tackle Co - http://www.chiltontackleco.com.au/ Coomera Bait & Tackle - www.coomerahouseboats.com.au Crab’n Gear - www.crabngear.com.au

ONSITE AND MOBILE INSTALLATIONS

GOLD COAST T&S Marine (07) 5546 2599 Whitewater Marine (07) 5532 4402

Fisho’s Tackle World - www.fishostackleworld.com.au

SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND

Gem Bait & Tackle - 07 3287 3868 Halco - www.halcotackle.com

Brisbane Yamaha (07) 3888 1727 Caloundra Marine (07) 5491 1944 Capalaba Boat Centre 04011 728 379 Coorparoo Marine (07) 3397 4141 Cunningham Marine Centre (07) 3284 8805 Holt Marine (07) 3353 1928 Northside Marine (07) 3265 8029 Stones Corner Marine (07) 3397 9766

Hillies Lures – www.hilliesspinnersandlures.com Hot Bite Fishing – 0427335343 JML - www.jmlaa.com Lazer Lures – www.lazerlures.com.au Nomad Design Tackle – www.nomaddesigntackle.com Tackle Club - www.tackleclub.com.au Southern Cross Lures – 0428 667 550

NORTH QUEENSLAND

Sportys Fishing - www.sportyswarehouse.com.au Wilson Fishing - www.wilsonfishing.com

Reef Marine Mackay (07) 4957 3521

• Sounders • GPS • Electric Motors • Marine Radios and accessories • Stereos • Televisions • Radar Units • Autopilots

www.trymax.com.au PHONE: 07 3245 3633

Unit 4/1440 New Cleveland Road Capalaba

MARINE OUTBOARD WRECKERS

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This is where your copy will appear. You will have approximately 50 words within a 5x2 ad size. $320 + GST for 6 months Email nkelly@fishingmonthly.com.au

North Queensland Outboard Wreckers Townsville 1800 812 748

FISH TAXIDERMY Fish Taxidermist www.fishtaxidermy.net.au or 0428 544 841

FISHING GUIDES CENTRAL QUEENSLAND

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MARINE MECHANICS // MOBILE WYNUMM MANLY-BAYSIDE

Lake Monduran Houseboat – www.lakem.com.au Moreton Bay Holidays Afloat - www.moretonbayholidaysafloat.com

BOAT MODIFICATION & REPAIRS

FIBREGLASS Repairs

Brisbane South an Gold Coasd t

• Modifications • Detailing • Repairs JOE BONNICI

0410 480 203

Salt-Away www.salt-away.com.au ASM Mobile Welding Brisbane 0409 624 402 Bluewater Windscreens Brisbane (07) 3382 7883

Wondall Rd Marine (07) 3396 5633

SAMPLE AD - BUSINESS NAME This is where your copy will appear. You will have approximately 50 words within a 5x2 ad size. $320 + GST for 6 months Email nkelly@fishingmonthly.com.au

Lake Monduran Barra Charters 0407 434 446

TROPICAL NORTH QUEENSLAND Hooked On Hinchinbrook www.hookedonhinchinbrook.com

MARINE TRIMMERS SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND Affordable Boat Covers Gold Coast 0419 424 587 Brisbane Yamaha (07) 3888 1727 Rays Canvas & Marine Caboolture (07) 5499 4911 Rowland Street Boat Trimmers Springwood (07) 3208 9511

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND The Islander Retreat, South Stradbroke Island 0420 967 557

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION FRASER ISLAND Apurla Island Retreat 0437 739 121 Cathedrals on Fraser (07) 4127 9177 Eurong Beach Resort 1800 111 808 Fraser Island Beach Houses 1800 626 230 Waddy Lodge on Fraser 0414 516 364 Yidney Rocks (07) 4127 9167

CENTRAL QUEENSLAND Baffle Creek Holiday House 0419 624 833

COOKTOWN River of Gold Motel 4069 5222

MACKAY

MARINE TRAILERS Oceanic Boat Trailers (07) 5597 0577 Sea-Link Special Trailers (07) 3881 3568 Spitfire Trailers (07) 0400 866 323T Tinnie Tosser (07) 5498 7339

BEL AIR MOTEL, MACKAY - PLENTY OF ROOM FOR BOATS AND TRAILERS.............PH: 07 4957 3658 FRESHWATER Lake Boondooma Caravan Park (07) 4168 9694 Lake Cressbrook Regional Council 131 872 Yallakool Caravan Park on Bjelke-Petersen Dam (07) 4168 4746 Yallakool Park and Kiosk on Bjelke-Petersen Dam (07) 4168 4746

This section in QLD Fishing Monthly consolidates the trades and services in your area that are relevant to your fishing and boating. Whether you’re a local looking for more options or a travelling angler fishing around the state, this guide will direct you to reputable businesses in the area you’re searching. 94

OCTOBER 2019

Boats & Guided Fishing Tours Directory ONLINE TACKLE PRODUCTS

A GREAT BIT OF KIT JUST GOT BETTER The ultimate FG knot tool for braid/ leader joins large and MODIFIED small DESIGN

allows braid tension adjustment

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NORTHERN NSW

N O W AVA IL A B L E

Evans Head Deep Sea Fishing Charters 0428 828 835 Reel Time Fishing Charters Yamba 0428 231 962

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Wooli Fishing Charter (02) 6649 7100

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CHARTER BOATS GOLD COAST BK’s Gold Coast Fishing Charters 0414 293 034 Coastal Sports Fishing Charters Gold Coast 0412 691 929 Discovery Fishing Charters Gold Coast 0427 026 519 Fish The Deep Charters 0416 224 412 Hooker 1 Charters Gold Coast (07) 5528 6469 Paradise Fishing Charters 0403 531 428 RU4 Reel Tweed Heads 0449 903 366 Sea Probe Fishing Charters 0400 312 330 True Blue Fishing Gold Coast (07) 5510 9622

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BRISBANE Big Cat Charters and Tom Cat Charters 0433 430 248 Frenzy Charters Brisbane (07) 3209 4576 John Gooding Outlaw Charters 0418 738 750 Moreton Island Fishing Charters 0413 128 056

SUNSHINE COAST Fish n Crab Charters Mooloolaba 0412 155 814 Fishing Offshore Noosa 0418 889 956 Hervey Bay Fishing Charters (07) 4125 3958 Incredible Charters 1300 655 818 Keely Rose Deep Sea Fishing Charters 0407 146 151 Noosa Fishing Charters (07) 5665 8170 Odyssey Charters Deep Sea Fishing (07) 5478 1109 Offshore Reef and Game Fishing 0413 485 402 Rainbow Beach Fishing Charters 0439 775 070 Smithy’s Fishing Charters Sunshine Coast 0407 574 868 Sunshine Coast Fishing Charters (07) 5500 0671 Top Catch Charters Sunshine Coast 0429 013 012

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MARINA BOAT & TACKLE, YAMBA MARINA

YAMBA’S LARGEST TACKLE STORE • Chandlery • Boat Sales • Ice & Gas • Bait & Tackle • Trailers Sales & Parts • Charter Bookings Ph: 6646 1994 or 0428 231 962 Email: dave@gaden.com.au Now Agents For

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CENTRAL QUEENSLAND (Cont.) Bundaberg Fishing Charters 0429 017 217

MANY DESIGNS TO CHOOSE FROM ON A WIDE VARIETY OF PRODUCTS ALL MADE TO ORDER

Sport Fish 1770 (07) 4974 9686 Coral Coast Game Fishing 0447 347 437 Norval Reef Charters 1800 771 234 Iluka Fishing Charters Gladstone 0414 940 911 Kanimbla Charters Gladstone1800 677 202

TROPICAL NORTH QUEENSLAND Action Charters Mackay 0417 452 346 Cairns Charter Boat 0427 533 081 Cairns Fishing Charters 0427 400 027 Cairns Reef Charter Services 1800 119 044 Eclipse FNQ Weipa Charters 0488 058 668 Fairdinkum Fishing Charters Townsville (07) 4751 5324 Fish’s Fly & Sportsfishing Weipa (07) 4069 9957

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Advertisers wanting to be involved in this directory can call (07) 3387 0834 or email nkelly@fishingmonthly.com.au OCTOBER 2019

FUN PAGE AND COMPETITIONS COOK YOUR CATCH

PAN FRY BATTER CRUMB SMOKE FILLET WHOLE STEAM BROIL TRAY BAKE CURE

DTD - REAL FISH OITA

SEAR SKEWER POACH ROAST SOUS VIDE MARINATE CHARGRILL DEEPFRY PICKLE BARBEQUE

Name: Address:

P/Code:

The first correct entry at the end of each month will win the prize pack. SEND ENTRIES TO: QLD Find-a-word Competition, PO box 3172, Loganholme Qld 4129

QLD OCTOBER 2019

Phone (day):

GEORGE & NEV by Michael Hardy

The ‘Real Fish Oita’ is an incredible, award winning squid jig manufactured in Europe by leading Croatian company - DTD. Taking out the coveted ‘best new product’ in its class at the EFTTEX 2015 Expo in Warsaw, this wonderful range is now available in Australia through Dogtooth Distribution. The product imitates real fish species. This coupled with DTD’s use of only the highest grade materials available, ensures great balance and results in superior catching ability. With the unique ‘fish parasite’ feature, aimed at luring predators in for an ‘easy kill’, these truly unique jigs are set to explode into the Australian market. FEATURES - Double weight system with inner weight designed to produce sound while squid jig is in action. COLOURS - 7 different designs representing popular fish species. ADDITIONAL - Luminous body, fish parasite, great balance, sound effect, quality stainless steel hooks SIZES - 5 Sizes available www.dogtoothdistribution.com.au

SPOT THE

10 DIFFERENCES

BARRA COUNTRY by Brett Currie

ORIGINAL

FIND-A-WORD

Congratulations to Adam Kross, who was last month’s winner of the Find-a-Word Competition! Monthly winners receive a Fishing Monthly prize pack. Prize delivery can take 8 weeks. – QFM

SUBSCRIBER PRIZE

The subscriber prize winner for August is I Walker of Tatong, who won an E.J. Todd prize pack valued at $300. All subscribers are entered in the monthly subscriber prize draws. Prize delivery takes up to 8 weeks. – QFM

Blackbutt, D Mayers of Northfield, R Kunde of Beerwah, B Newton of Trinity Beach, D McClurg of Boondall, R Thompson of Taigum, R Poor of Godwin Beach, J Hermann of Pacific Heights, B Rossetti of Proserpine, J Goody of Mount Berryman, A Stoffels of Yarrabilba, G Cull of Burrum Heads, A Scott of Proserpine, R Skase of Chiltern, G Walker of Warner, M Roots of

Cowley Beach, B Stephan of Donnybrook, D Leciej of Hervey Bay, B Nicholson of Bundamba, J Paul of Inverell, R Brown of Edmonton, M Baker of Gorokan, R Quill of Tin Can Bay, P Fels of Cushnie, T Geaney of Beecher, I Hamson of Conondale, T Gyte of Aspley, D Sclippa of Mourilyan, M Chadwick of Burrum Heads. Prize delivery takes up to 8 weeks. – QFM

LAST MONTH’S ANSWERS

FIND THE DAIWA LOGO

OCTOBER 2019

GUESS THE FISH?

This month’s Guess the Fish Answer: Australian Herring

The answers to Find the Daiwa Logo for August were: 11, 18, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 40, 44, 52, 54, 64, 69, 70, 84. – QFM The Find the Daiwa Logo prize winners for August were: D Moros of Edmonton, M Hever of Childers, D Hutchins of Bundaberg, J Higgins of Caboolture, G Watter of Ripley, M Gillett of Boonah, J Steinhardt of Tivoli, K Oakley of Robina, B Tieman of Buxton, J Fourro of Bundaberg, L Dent of Millmerran, A Needham of

Answer:

boats & kayaks

In the skipper’s seat 98 Pimpama paddles and pedals Inside story...

Bar Crusher leads the industry in design and quality to produce some of the most advanced plate aluminium fishing boats on the market. Incorporating exclusive innovations, Bar Crusher boats are renowned for their superior performance.

Made for...

Bar Crusher’s philosophy is all about ensuring that the buyer ends up with a boat that’s ideal for their offshore boating needs. Bar Crushers deliver a super-smooth ride – a far cry from the uncomfortable, pounding ride of traditional aluminium boats – and superior stability at rest.

This month...

Editor Steve Morgan climbs into the Bar Crusher 535C, powered by a 90hp Suzuki 4-stroke. Check it out on page 106!

Troy Brown takes an exploratory kayak trip up this very accessible and fish-rich river to the south of Brisbane!

102 Preparing for an SUP camping trip Justin Willmer looks at the preparations and considerations for a SUP-based camping adventure!

104 Take a look inside a pre-loved boat Wayne Kampe takes you through what to look for on the inside of a used boat before you make a decision to buy it.

OCTOBER 2019

Bar Crusher 535C with Suzuki 90hp 4-stroke

- SC

TENT -

RE ONLINE MO

CON

AN THE

more of a task than a chore. Featuring a large cockpit and available fishing space for the size of the boat, the gunwales are high enough to feel comfortable and the folding transom bench seat stows in seconds to create the

DE FOR EX

T FMG

Steve Morgan s.morgan@fishingmonthly.com.au

As Bar Crusher’s Matt Urzia explained, their 535C Cuddy Cabin boat is aimed squarely at the angler who wants to take their fishing to the next level of range and comfort. We’ve all done days in the small tinny and although you can sometimes get to where you want to fish, there are often only small windows when this is comfortable and safe. “It’s all about better comfort, ride, stability and range,” Matt said at the Patterson River boat ramp on a picture perfect day on Port Phillip Bay. And although the 535C is on the smaller side of the Bar Crusher range, it lacks none of the features of its bigger brothers and sisters.

PERFORMANCE

Main: Bar Crusher’s Gen2 hull design features for’ard reverse chines. You can see them here diverting water down and away from the hull. Above: Powered by a Suzuki 90hp 4-stroke, the 535C Cuddy Cabin is a very efficient rig on the water. At optimum cruising efficiency it delivers over 3km/L, giving a theoretical range of over 300km. the hull lower in the water, which increases stability for the given beam. When the boat moves, the water dumps out of the transom holes virtually

SPECIFICATIONS Hull Length...............................................5.35m Beam......................................................... 2.15m Bottom sheet.............................................4mm Side sheet...................................................3mm Fuel............................................................. 100L Dry tow weight........................................1150kg Min hp.........................................................60hp Max hp......................................................100hp Trailer height............................................ 2.15m Capacity............................................. 5 persons Starting with the Gen2 hull, the 535C features the reverse chines to turn away spray and their water ballast system. If you’re unfamiliar with Bar Crushers, it’s a chamber with several hundred litres volume that floods as the boat sits at rest. It drags 106

OCTOBER 2019

get 3.5km/L at 37km/h. With a 100L underfloor fuel tank, that gives a theoretical range of well over 300km for this rig – plenty for even the most ambitious angler. The test boat was supplied by Bar Crusher and as tested,

instantly. It’s a way that Bar Crusher deals with boating’s constant compromise of ride quality versus stability at rest. Another point of interest with this rig for ex-tinny owners is the fact that these boats are designed to fold down to fit into standard garages. The

windscreen folds over and the targa top has hinges at the gunwale line (with the removal of a single pin) so this model can fit into a garage 2m high. All Bar Crushers that I’ve tested from the factory have been supplied on Victorian made Easytow trailers. This 535C is cradled on a single axle trailer with skids and central rollers. The Easytow not only looks good, but because it’s designed exactly for that model of boat, you know that it’ll be fit for purpose. In my experience, these Easytows coupled with the Bar Catch deployment system makes it really easy to spend minimal time on the ramp itself. And it’s always nice to be the fast guy at the ramp rather than the muppet undoing his tie down strap after reversing down the slope. At 1,300kg dry towing weight, nearly all cars with a towbar can tow it. From a practical point of

view this Crusher, like most of its ilk, are built for durability and ease of maintenance. The abundance of chequer plate flooring with minimal carpet and vinyl means that cleaning the rig at the end of the day is

RPM......Speed (km/h) Economy (km/L) 1000.......................... 7........................ 6.7 2000........................ 11........................ 3.7 3000........................ 21........................ 3.0 4000........................ 37........................ 3.5 5000........................ 49........................ 2.7 6000........................ 60........................ 6.0 ideal area to seriously fish. Performance wise, the test boat seemed to be propped for rough water handling rather than top end speed. Still, at 60km/h at wide open throttle, 6,000rpm was achieved at 1.8km/L economy. Drop the revs down to 4000 and you can

attracted a price tag of the mid-$50,000s. Packages start from mid-$40,000s. For more information, visit Australian Marine Centre at 3491 Pacific Highway Slacks Creek (07) 3808 7333, or go to www.amcboats.com.au and sales@amcboats.com.au.

The test rig was propped for hole shot and rough water rather than speed. As a result, it rocketed out of the hole.

The cabin in this Bar Crusher is definitely more spartan than luxurious. That said, it’s super easy to maintain and does offer a place out of the weather to take a breather. It’s very open to the cockpit.

An underfloor kill tank is a near necessity in a fishing boat these days. This Bar Crusher’s sits in the rear middle of the cockpit floor.

The dashboard is small to facilitate easy access to the cuddy cabin and there’s still space to flush mount your sounder and see it from the cockpit.

The transom shelf keeps your batteries and switching off the floor and relatively dry.

Bar Crusher features a unique pod and duckboard design that sets the outboard back from the main hull while still maintaining flotation.

Once you’ve had a Bar Catch trailer, you’ll never want to own a rig without an autolatching and deployment system.

Every factory Bar Crusher I’ve tested has been supplied on a custom designed Easytow trailer. This single axle model, foldable windscreen and targa top means that this rig will fit into a 2m high garage if required.

The 535C features 16 degrees of transom deadrise. The water ballast system pulls the chines into the water at rest and makes the beam seem a lot wider when it comes to stability.

Top: We like Bar Crusher’s simplicity in design – the fewer moving parts and pumps the better. This transom livewell gravity drains onto the duckboard via a series of overflow holes. Above: Remove a single pin and the targa top can be folded over to get the boat into a garage.

Top: There’s a removable cutting board in the transom bait station and a few rod holders. Bar Crusher’s rigging stations are rarely complicated. Above: The test boat was also fitted with a Stressfree anchor winch – a virtual necessity in Victoria!

Clever in-base tackle storage will tick a few boxes for organised anglers. OCTOBER 2019

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