Taylors Triumph at the Pflueger Peter Faust Barra Trophy
The irrepressible ABT and AFC Barra Champs were always going to be hard to beat on their home dam, although they trailed after session one, their consistency shone through and gave them the win. In their own words, here is how they did it;
Saturday – We started out by fishing a couple of deep & shallow locations for no fish. We moved to another area, a weedy tree-lined edge in a large bay full of drowned creek beds.
After fishing for just 15 minutes, we caught our bag limit. An 80cm size class fish was first caught then several minutes later another around 80cm and a fish just over a metre long were captured in two casts. After that we decided to stop fishing our main areas for the rest of that session as we thought we had a substantial bag limit and wanted to leave the fish for the final session on Sunday.
Sunday – We started fishing and it took about 20 minutes for the first fish to connect which looked about 85cm. However, right at the net the fish escaped. 10 minutes later, another fish was hooked. This one was well over a metre long and ejected the X-Rap during a 2m high leap out of the water. The next hour involved hooking up two more fish and landing one, which was just under a metre in length. The action started to slow down significantly so we moved to another location on the lake, some drowned shrubs in 3.5m of water with mats of lilly pads surrounding them.
The Lowrance HDS Structure Scan displayed mid-sized barramundi in the general area. We fished in tight to the lilly pads and in the next 30 minutes we caught 2 small fish about 60cm long and lost another 2 about the same size on Squidgy Slick Rigs. These two completed the bag limit of three fish. We used 110mm in the Slick Rigs mainly in Slimey colour and used the Rapala XRap XR10 in the Purple Albino colour. Any colours seemed to work though.
The outfits used were a Shimano Calcutta 100B with a Millerods Salty Barra rod and Shimano Chronarch 100D5 paired to a Shimano T-Curve Barra HVY T-Series rod. These were spooled with 20lb FINS PRT braid connected to 80lb Black Magic leader.
Second place Pro team went to B&K, the newly engaged couple of Brook Ebzery and Katie Sanderson. They had a great session on Saturday that saw them catch and loose fish in all sorts of ways. Katie caught the first barra by throwing out a Transam, then sitting down with the rod in her lap, to do something else, she noticed a tug on her rod, and thought it was Brook messing with her, but all of a sudden the line took off, and she was connected to a barra, they managed to land the 92cm fish, which gave Katie the prize for first barra of the tournament.
Katie managed another good fish on a Mullet, during the fight the line got wrapped around the tiller arm and lanyard, but they somehow managed to get it off and land the 96cm barra, which eventually won her the “Big Barra – Ladies” Trophy’. Brook also had a debacle while fighting a fish, he got his hat cord wrapped up in his reel, so he ended up with the reel jammed against his chin, they managed to untangle it and still land the fish……it was all happening!
Leading after the first session, they didn’t quite get the bites to match Team Evinrude/Mako in session two, but Brook did manage to land the Biggest Barra of the tournament with a 106cm fish winning him the custom made ACM Big Barra Rod. Katie’s speech at the presentation was very entertaining, as it was a comedy of errors, but they must have been doing something right as they took home the 2nd place cash, and the Big Barra Senior and Ladies Trophies and Prizes.
Relegated to third Pro Team by their daughter and Son-in-law- to- be, was Elaine and Shane Sanderson of Team Big Fin. Shane got a good metre plus fish on a gold Blade on Saturday, and then Elaine bought home the bacon on Sunday with two good fish taken on a Squidgy and XRap . Elaine was heard to mumble something about teaching the kids too well, after being pipped for second team and the ‘Big Barra – Ladies” Trophy, by her daughter. Holding down forth place was Team Rapala, the formidable pairing of Jon Millard and last year’s invitational winner Trent Power. Jon was the one to land all the fish this time though, with one coming on a Berkley Hollowbelly and the other on Leads Shad.
Jarrod Dalton and Brad Purdy of Team Hornet, got themselves on the scoreboard with a 67cm taken by Jarrod on a Richo’s Extractor. Their weekend was extra challenging with an electric motor steering fault, but they battled on with it steering by hand, and managed to get a barra.
Amateur Teams It was great to see seven new teams line up in the amateur category to experience ABT style tournament barra fishing. The Team of David & Goliath – Vinnie Verfeld and Karim de Ridder made the trip from Townsville to have a go. Karim reigned surpreme catching a 101 in session one, and a 103cm in session two, to put their team in first place within the category. The succesfull lures were Squidgies and Hollowbellys. The guys enjoyed the weekend, and I dare say we will see them back for the ABT Barra Pro events in November.
Second place in the Amateur category went to John Trigg and Paul Stevenson of JT Reel Repairs. These guys are sooty nuts and targeted sooties all weekend on Rapala Fat raps and poppers. John said he was disappointed not to have scored any on Saturday, but they came home strong in the Sunday session with three fish for a total length of 130cm.
Third team was X Country, the Father and Son team of Jeff and Zac Attwood.
In the smallest boat in the field, the lightweight Xcountry 4.2m, powered by a 15 horse Yamaha, Zac managed to catch a solid 49cm Sooty late in the first session on a Rattling spot.
The ten year old was stoked with that fish, as it helped him to a swag of prizes, third in the Amateur teams, as well as the biggest fish for a junior and the longest sooty for the tournament. All three juniors in the event took home a lure prize pack for coming and having a go.
A big thank you to Local Sponsors, Lindsay Dobe from Barramundi Fishing Charters, Aaron from ACM Custom Rods, and John Trigg from JT Reel Repairs. Also thanks to local organisers Daniel Grech and Belinda Winton, who made this event happen. I must also mention Freddy Grech and Trevor Cassidy who also helped out in running the event.
Naming sponsors of the event Pflueger donated several Salt and Arbor reels. Other sponsors included Berkley, Squidgy, Cultiva, Nitro Jigheads, Strike Pro, Jackal, Rapala and Sufix. A great weekend was had by all. It’s great to see Peter Faust Dam in such good shape with plenty of fish biting so early in the season, it looks like it could be one of the most productive barra dams on the tour this year.
The Mondy Barra Trophy is coming up on the 1st and 2nd October, this event has Pro, Amateur and Kayak Divisions to cater for all types of barra anglers. Mondy is starting to fire as well, with lots of good reports of 40 – 70cm barra being caught with the odd metery also being encountered. Matt Fraser
| Overall Results | |
| Total Barra Caught | 18 Barra – 9 per Session – 1651cm total length – 91.7 average size |
| Total Sooty’s Caught | 5 Sooty’s – 226cm total length – 45.2cm average size |
| Pro Team Results: | |
| Champion Pro Team | Evinrude/Mako Eyewear- Kerrin & Cy Taylor – 6 Barra for 481cm |
| 2nd Pro Team | B & K – Brook Ebzery & Katie Sanderson – 4 Barra for 402cm |
| 3rd Pro Team | Big Fin – Shane & Elaine Sanderson – 3 Barra for 292cm |
| 4th Pro Team | Rapala – Jon Millard & Trent Power – 2 Barra for 203cm |
| 5th Pro Team | Team Hornet – Jarrod Dalton & Brad Purdy – 1 Barra for 67cm |
| Amateur Team Results: | |
| Champion Amateur Team | David and Goliath – Karim De Riddler & Vinner Versfeld – 2 Barra for 203cm |
| 2nd Amateur Team | JT Reel Repairs – John Trigg & Paul Stevenson – 3 Sooty’s for 130cm |
| 3rd Amateur Team | X Country – Jeff & Zac Attwood – 1 Sooty for 49cm |
| Longest Sooty | Zac Attwood – 49cm |
| Champion Sooty Team | JT Reel Repairs – John Trigg & Paul Stevension – 3 Sooty’s for 130cm |
| Biggest Barra Senior | Brook Ebzery 108cm & 106cm Barra |
| Biggest Barra Junior/Sooty | Zac Attwood with a 49cm Sooty |
| Biggest Barra Ladies | Katie Sanderson – 96cm Barra |
| First Barra Caught | Katie Sanderson (17/09/11 1:15pm) |