Lake Monduran, the vast body of water scattered with timber, just North of Bundaberg, was the final venue for the 2006 Daiwa BARRA Tour.
Lake Monduran, the vast body of water scattered with timber, just North of Bundaberg, was the final venue for the 2006 Daiwa BARRA Tour.
And it was the newly crowned ‘Barra Vampire’, in John Schofield that took out the Champion Angler Title with 6/10, 548cm. With the assistance of his partner in crime ‘Lord’ Peter Morgan scoring a couple of fish himself on Day 2, the pair was also successful in taking out the Champion Team Title for Nitro Tournament Rods.
Schofield fished the creek, adjacent to the dam wall, opposite the concrete boat ramp, targeting areas tight on the bank with a lot of brush timber. His hotspot for the weekend was a shelf, off a point in 10-12 feet of water that went for approximately 30-40 yards.
Equipped with a Nitro Extreme Tournament Barra Rod matched to a Shimano Chronarch spooled with 50pd Scientific Angler ultra thin fly line backing and finished with a length of twisted 80pd Black Magic leader. Schofield worked various Jonesy’s lures in the Nifty and Rhino range, finding the Rhino’s acquainting for more fish as they are a deeper diving lure. The colours of choice being brown and white and grey and white.
“I would give the lure 10 winds to get it down, then general twitches punctuated with pauses. Finding the fish would hit on the pause†he explained.
Second place went to Les Reibelt with 6/10, 490cm, Third (Steve Kanowski, 5/10, 411cm), Fourth (Matt Coleman, 4/10, 295cm) and Fifth (Stephen Cheng, 3/10, 240cm).
Reibelt, a Process Operator from Beerwah has been fishing Monduran for three years. He used an Egrell B58 rod matched to a Daiwa CVZ 203 reel spooled with 60pd Fins braid and 150pd doubled Penn Power Pro braid as leader. Using the same Arafura barra lure for the whole weekend was the key to Reibelt’s success.
“It was more a confidence thingâ€, he explained. “At one stage, a barra snapped the 60pd braid and stole the lure. Then I found it rising to the surface. I replaced the back treble, put on two split rings, and continued to catch fish on it†he said.
The Go-So Big Barra and Berkley Bonus went to John Schwerin with a 114cm horse caught on day 2 on a Big B52 lure.
“It didn’t fight much. It went for a run then I got it next to the boat; the young fella was holding the net up in the air expecting the barra to jump in! We eventually netted it and it sorted the men out from the boys†he joked.
A $200 stocking donation was made to M.A.S.A for the continued stocking of barramundi into Lake Monduran. Over the weekend 60 fish were photographed and released at an average size of 81.86cm.
With the final event now completed, the Southern and Overall Barra AOY winners were announced. Jason Medcalf narrowly beat his partner Nigel Webster for the Individual Southern Angler of the Year Title with the guys taking out the Southern Team Championship for Team Halco/Berkley. With the Northern AOY already under his belt, the young Barra gun in Kerrin Taylor narrowly beat his twin brother Cy by one point for the Overall Daiwa BARRA Tour AOY Champion. The boys also taking out the Overall Team AOY Trophy for team Millerods-Shimano.
With the suspense now building for that trip of a lifetime aboard the Eclipse Charter boat in Weipa, all entries into the Daiwa BARRA tour were shuffled. To his disbelief it was Gary Leather that had his named drawn out and is now still coming down to earth with the good fortune that has bestowed him.
From the staff at ABT we would like to thank all anglers, sponsors and people involved with the venues for making the 2006 Daiwa BARRA tour a most memorable adventure and look forward to catching up with everyone at another ABT Tournament in the near future.
| Place | Team | Angler | F1 | L1 | F2 | L2 | TF | TL |
| 1 | Nitro Tournament Rods | John Schofield | 3 | 267 | 3 | 281 | 6 | 548 |
| 2 | McBarra | Les Reibelt | 1 | 106 | 5 | 384 | 6 | 490 |
| 3 | Team Tennessee | Steve Kanowski | 5 | 411 | 5 | 411 | ||
| 4 | The Assassins | Matt Coleman | 2 | 158 | 2 | 137 | 4 | 295 |
| 5 | Tropic Angler | Stephen Cheng | 3 | 240 | 3 | 240 | ||
| 6 | Mundi | Trevor Burgess | 3 | 231 | 3 | 231 | ||
| 7 | Team Berkley | Jason Medcalf | 2 | 194 | 2 | 194 | ||
| 8 | Far Kens | Ken Best | 2 | 116 | 1 | 74 | 3 | 190 |
| 9 | QFM | Dave Robinson | 2 | 184 | 2 | 184 | ||
| 10 | Nitro Tournament Rods | Pete Morgan | 2 | 178 | 2 | 178 | ||
| 11 | QFM | Steve Morgan | 2 | 174 | 2 | 174 | ||
| 12 | Tackle World Bundaberg | Gary Leather | 1 | 87 | 1 | 87 | 2 | 174 |
| 13 | Tackle World Bundaberg | Chris Galligan | 2 | 173 | 2 | 173 | ||
| 14 | Slick Rigs | Tony Zantiotas | 1 | 88 | 1 | 72 | 2 | 160 |
| 15 | The Assassins | Aaron Mogg | 1 | 88 | 1 | 69 | 2 | 157 |
| 16 | FCM | John Schwerin | 1 | 114 | 1 | 114 | ||
| 17 | Team Berkley | Nigel Webster | 1 | 90 | 1 | 90 | ||
| 18 | The Tackle Warehouse | Gordon McDonald | 1 | 86 | 1 | 86 | ||
| 19 | Millerods-Shimano | Cy Taylor | 1 | 84 | 1 | 84 | ||
| 20 | Bundy Barra Bandits | Les Barber | 1 | 74 | 1 | 74 | ||
| 21 | Millerods-Shimano | Kerrin Taylor | 1 | 73 | 1 | 73 | ||
| 22 | G.Loomis | Josh Batterson | 1 | 72 | 1 | 72 | ||
| 23 | Evakool-Squidgies | Matthew Mott | 1 | 69 | 1 | 69 | ||
| 24 | Team Tassie | Meg Estreich | 1 | 69 | 1 | 69 | ||
| 25 | Far Kens | Ken Berry | 1 | 68 | 1 | 68 | ||
| 26 | Fatman & Ribbon | Scott Bromley | 1 | 68 | 1 | 68 | ||
| 27 | G.Loomis | Mike Connolly | 1 | 67 | 1 | 67 | ||
| 28 | Bundy Barra Bandits | Shane Anderson | 1 | 66 | 1 | 66 | ||
| 29 | Lethal Leaders | Doug Kampf | 1 | 66 | 1 | 66 | ||
| 30 | Evakool-Squidgies | Kerry Symes | 1 | 47 | 1 | 47 | ||
| 31 | Amen Brother | Andrew Duffy | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Amen Brother | Daniel Buckley | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Ecogear | David Young | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Ecogear | Gavin Dunne | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Fatman & Ribbon | Scott McAuley | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | FCM | Jake Schwerin | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Gudgeon | Alf Gudgeon | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Gudgeon | Ben Gudgeon | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Jet One | Neil Campbell | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Jet One | Trevor Cassidy | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Lethal Leaders | Adrian Kampf | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | McBarra | Tania Reibelt | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Mundi | Greg Wipp | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Pop Guns | Brendan Jones | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Pop Guns | Jesse Buckley | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Slick Rigs | Craig Simmons | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Team Tassie | Chris Estreich | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Team Tennessee | John Brider | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | The Tackle Warehouse | Ben Currell | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Tin of Gold | Justin Fisher | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Tin of Gold | Trevor Nye | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 31 | Tropic Angler | Paul Probert | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 24 | 1921 | 37 | 2991 | 61 | 4912 | |||
| Avg | 80.04166667 | Avg | 80.83783784 | Avg | 80.52459016 |
| Place | Team | TF | TL |
| 1 | Nitro Tournament Rods | 8 | 726 |
| 2 | McBarra | 6 | 490 |
| 3 | The Assassins | 6 | 452 |
| 4 | Team Tennessee | 5 | 411 |
| 5 | QFM | 4 | 358 |
| 6 | Tackle World Bundaberg | 4 | 347 |
| 7 | Team Berkley | 3 | 284 |
| 8 | Far Kens | 4 | 258 |
| 9 | Tropic Angler | 3 | 240 |
| 10 | Mundi | 3 | 231 |
| 11 | Slick Rigs | 2 | 160 |
| 12 | Millerods-Shimano | 2 | 157 |
| 13 | Bundy Barra Bandits | 2 | 140 |
| 14 | G.Loomis | 2 | 139 |
| 15 | Evakool-Squidgies | 2 | 116 |
| 16 | FCM | 1 | 114 |
| 17 | The Tackle Warehouse | 1 | 86 |
| 18 | Team Tassie | 1 | 69 |
| 19 | Fatman & Ribbon | 1 | 68 |
| 20 | Lethal Leaders | 1 | 66 |
| 21 | Amen Brother | 0 | 0 |
| 22 | Ecogear | 0 | 0 |
| 23 | Gudgeon | 0 | 0 |
| 24 | Jet One | 0 | 0 |
| 25 | Pop Guns | 0 | 0 |
| 26 | Tin of Gold | 0 | 0 |