Townsville Game Fishing Club Invitational Barra Tournament (part 1)

[Waz-in-Oz]

The Townsville Game Fishing Club held its first annual Invitational Barramundi Tournament last weekend which saw 35 teams of two fish the two day event which was a huge success.

Although a cold snap (probaly the last for the year) hammered the coast for the week leading up to the tournament with morning air tempetures at the Hinchinbrook Channel dipping to 8 degree's and a water tempeture sitting at 20 degrees barra's were still caught, measured, photographed and released.

255 Barras were caught along with an ***ortment of other by catch species including mangrove jack, salmon, fingermark, bream, grunter, queenfish and cod. The largest Barra was 82 cms and a lot of fish were in the 40 plus size with some good fish measured in the 60 and 70 cm size cl***.

Champion team was local angler Peter Mamino and Rolly Newton (tackle shop owner out of Tully) and runner up team was Mark Wasley (Hewes Redfisher 16) and Ben Bright from Weipa(Fish's Sportfishing / Flyfishing charters). There was 20 points between 1st and 2nd and only 15 points between 3rd and 4th which shows it went down to wire at the end.

Ben, Parksy (BF16 owner)and myself had a prefish of two days mainly as a get away from work to wind down as this tournament is about fun as much as competing so quite a few ales get consumed along with stories about ones that didn't make it to the measuring board. We were hosted at the Lucinda Point Hotel and all gathered back there each night for great company, drinks and good food.

I have set up the photos and spread them over 4 parts with one being Day 1 of the pre-fish, Day 2 prefish, Day 3 - 4 Tournament shots and Part 4 the social side. Always hard to take lots of photos when tournament fishing as you struggle for time but hopefully I have captured a few shots that show you some good fish and the fun we have over here on the East Coast of Australia.

Won't bore you with the minor details but can say that my new Lowrance HDS10 fitted with structure scan (side and down imaging ) was instrumental in our results which are my best so far. I fished with Ben about 6 years ago and we got a 4th place in the bigger Ingham Tournament and I learn't alot having a skilled fisherman who runs hummingbird side scanners on board this time especially in marking and identifying fish on them. I am so looking forward to doing some more exploring and trying different techniques with this unit as a aid.

Hope you enjoy the photos:

Day 1 Pre-fish: Fished out of Parkesy's 16 Bonefisher. Some good fish caught but the best thing was it was rough up the channel and instead of coming home through the open channel Parkesy took us up the shortcut to come in through the back country and as you can see it was a tad shallow. We had a laugh, a few drinks and as the tide was roaring in we didn't have to push too far. Oh, and we didn't tell nobody at the Tournament about the Lappy running aground did we - you gotta love phones with access to facebook and emails don't ya.