Category: Results

Hot days and stormy nights greeted 52 anglers competing in the first event of the 2005 Daiwa BARRA Tour at Lake Awoonga.

Plenty of metre plus barra made for an exciting competition between the 26 teams, with a total of 97 fishing weighed-in for the event.

In the end victory was claimed by Team Pflueger, comprised of Jason Wilhelm and Gareth Dunwoodie, who consistently caught fish over the two days to finish clearly on top in the teams category. Compiling a 1389cm total Pflueger easily outclassed the rest of the field, with the runners-up position claimed by the Unknotted Old Dogs team (595cm), featuring seasoned anglers Rod “Harro” Harrison and Dale Sinclair.
Jason Wilhelm, a 31 year old Shift Manager finished with the only, 10/10 bag and a total length of 728cms. His partner Gareth Dunwoodie finished a close second with a 9/10 bag, 661cms. While the Go-So Big Barra title was hotly contested before being claimed by Gladstone local, Scott McAuley with his outstanding 116cm specimen captured on day one of the event. Falling to a 75mm Halco Scorpion in the bleeding mullet colour, the large fish was wrestled from of the many shallow bays scatter throughout the dam.

Fishing Awoonga at least 3 days a week, the well knowledged Wilhelm focused on getting his bag early, before chasing larger upgrade fish later in the night.

Wilhelm’s gear of choice included an E Grell Woomera 5’8 baitcaster rod, matched to a Pflueger Supreme low profile baitcaster reel, spooled with 50 pound Shakespeare Cajun braid and finished off with 70 pound flurocarbon leader. While his lure selection was comprised of 10+ Barra Classic 120s, when targeting fish in the 10-12 foot depth range, and a Kingdom Mars lure when chasing fish under the cover of darkness.

The retrieve largely remained the same for the both lures, with the key being a violent, erratic presentation fuelled with heavy and repeated twitches to get the attention of the barra.

His partner Gareth Dunwoodie, a 25 year old Carpenter and regular fishing companion of Wilhelm, in contrast chose Extracta lures during the day, using the same violent twitch pattern to tempt his fish. His choice of tackle to compile his limit included a Shimano T-Curve rod and a Shimano Chronarch baitcaster reel. The boys mentioned that any colour worked, but what was more important was how the lure swam and its presence in the water.
“Twitching and working that lure in their face was the key to getting their attention”, Dunwoodie explained. “If you didn’t do it, you didn’t get the hits”, he concluded.

They had their game plan worked out before the event, with several locations pinpointed and almost of assured of providing them with fish. Being their first tournament they both knew how important is was to get their five fish in the bag to relieve the pressure of tournament fishing.

“I spoke to a few ABT veterans leading up to the event, and they emphasised to me how important it was to get your limit first, then chase the big ones”, Wilhelm explained.

“So that’s what we did. We got our five, then went looking for the big ones”, he concluded.

The perfectly executed plan then allowed both anglers to have some fun and just go fishing.

The second leg of the series sees the Tour hit the waters of Mackay’s Teemburra Dam for the first of two Night Championships events, 16th November.

The Tour then makes its’ way north for two events as Peter Faust Dam, before coming to its conclusion on Lake Tinaroo on the Atherton Tablelands.

If you would like to join in the fun for either the remainder of the 2005 Daiwa BARRA Tour or want to start planning for next year, check out all the info at www.australianbarra.com.au.

Place	Angler	F1	L1	F2	L2	TF	TL(cm)
1	Jason Wilheim	5	375	5	353	10	728
2	Gareth Dunwoodie	5	344	4	317	9	661
3	Barry Collett	2	185	5	328	7	513
4	Scott McAuley	5	453			5	453
5	Rod Harrison	2	124	3	300	5	424
6	Robert Bartlett	5	365			5	365
7	Matthew Mott	4	253	1	99	5	352
8	Gavin Dunne			3	280	3	280
9	Anthony Pegg	3	160	1	69	4	229
10	John Schwerin	3	222			3	222
11	Michael Bohem	1	53	2	159	3	212
12	Peter May	1	107	1	103	2	210
13	Adrian Lindsay	1	62	2	126	3	188
14	Dennis Schwerin	2	128	1	52	3	180
15	Darren Lewis	2	118	1	55	3	173
16	Dale Sinclair	2	171			2	171
17	Dale Smith	2	169			2	169
18	Steve Morgan			2	169	2	169
19	Adam Meredith			2	166	2	166
20	Peter Morgan	1	66	1	71	2	137
21	Les Reibelt	2	126			2	126
22	Kerry Symes	2	122			2	122
23	Cathy McNaught	1	108			1	108
24	Christine Machonachie	1	97			1	97
25	David Lang	1	95			1	95
26	Stephen Brodie			1	92	1	92
27	Darren Pegg	1	76			1	76
28	James Coate	1	66			1	66
29	John Schofield	1	66			1	66
30	Trevor Cassidy	1	66			1	66
31	Scott Bromly			1	59	1	59
32	Alan Macnamara	1	55			1	55
33	Brian Hampton	1	55			1	55
34	Shane Anderson			1	42	1	42
35	Graham Vallance			1	40	1	40
36	Chris Brignall					0	0
36	Chris Machonachie					0	0
36	Corey Tarr					0	0
36	Craig Gordon					0	0
36	Gabrielle McAuley					0	0
36	Gary Boyd					0	0
36	Geoff Burgess					0	0
36	Jason Bird					0	0
36	John Thwaites					0	0
36	Julian Gascoine					0	0
36	Leon Coate					0	0
36	Mark Todd					0	0
36	Peter Roberts					0	0
36	Rod Sealey					0	0
36	Steve Tracey					0	0
36	Tim Steenhuis					0	0
36	Trevor Burgess					0	0

You wouldn’t have heard much about it, because we kept it a little quiet, but in last November, around twenty anglers competed in the trial BARRA event. What is BARRA? Well, anyone who’s read about the bream and the BASS events will have a pretty reasonable guess. BARRA is ABTs new series launch for 2005 – a two-week tour encompassing five events on four impoundments.

It’ll also open to anyone who wants to join.
It was a diverse group of individuals – some experienced tournament anglers and a healthy contingent of MAFSA members. MAFSA is the vibrant stocking group that’s made Mackay’s impoundment fisheries what they are – currently a little low on water, but crammed full of barramundi and sooty grunter.

Of Mackay’s three gems, Teemburra dam was most suitable for the event, in which anglers used digital cameras to verify catches recorded on their data sheets. Teemburra isn’t noted for its monster barra, but it’s definitely a dam to catch numbers of fish. In the week leading up to the event, it wasn’t unusual to land between five and ten barra in a session.

Luckily, the diversity of competitors meant that Teemburra was tested with a vast array of techniques – most of which the local barra accepted. Anglers fished anywhere from the surface with near-foot-long stickbaits, fly and the classic barra jerkbaits through to deep presentations with slow-rolled swim baits and weighted soft plastics.

And not surprisingly, legendary BASS angler, John Schofield, topped the field, proving that his bass fishing knack isn’t lost on the species’ larger cousins.

John landed a majority of his fish on Tsunami swim baits – a bony-bream shaped soft plastic with an inbuilt weight and paddle tail that kicks and rolls enticingly just above the bottom on a slow retrieve.

“During the week we fished here, the swim baits were definitely the most consistent way to get the barra to bite,” John said, “but often it was harder to stay connected than to hook the fish.”

John was also surprised at how gently the barra would ‘nip’ at the soft plastic before finally deciding to engulf it.

“Sometimes the barra would bite at it four or five times in a retrieve – sometimes they’d eventually hook up and sometimes they wouldn’t. You could usually entice them back, though, if you knew that were in an area,” he continued.

John’s biggest fish of his week at Teemburra – a magnificent 104cm specimen – followed the script and gently nipped at the lure once before coming back to finish the job.

“You would have picked that bite from an undersized bream if you didn’t know better,” John explained, “so one thing I’ve learned is that you treat every bite as a potential metre-fish when you’re barra fishing.”

John’s catch was made up of 4/5 fish for the Saturday evening session, measuring 2.645m and then another 2/5 barra measuring 1.375m on the Sunday.

Favourable comments were received about the scoring system. Each angler photographed their barra on a measuring tape supplied and supplied their digital media memory cards to the weigh master with their catch sheets. Also, anglers liked fishing with team mates of their own selection.

Not many liked the morning start backing up from the late evening session and most voted for a longer afternoon/evening session each day.

Imaging a fishing tournament when you can sleep in each morning!

So, from here, it’s onwards and upwards for the BARRA circuit in 2005. Keep an eye out on this site for further details.

RESULTS

Last Name	First Name	s1	s2	total
Schofield	John	4/5 for 2645	2/5 for 1375	4020
Morgan	Steve	4/5 for 2632	1/5 for 657	3289
Morgan	Peter	2/5 for 1297	1/5 for 705	2002
Prerost	Gary	1/5 for 580	2/5 for 1240	1820
Goldsmith	Simon	1/5 for 675	1/5 for 675	1350
Cunnington	Neil	2/5 for 1310	0	1310
Bilney	Russell	1/5 for 745	1/5 for 545	1290
Bruessow	Damian	1/5 for 750	0	750
Gesch	Brett	1/5 for 690	0	690
Eals	Jeff	1/5 for 650	0	650
Trigg	John	1/5 for 590	0	590
Bruessow	Ray	0	1/5 for 580	580
Inskip	Wade	1/5 for 570	0	570
Day	Keith	1/5 for 520	0	520
Jennies	Darren	0	0	0
McLaren	Peter	0	0	0
Wix	Bruce	0	0	0
Tracey	Stephen	0	0	0
Cassady	Trevor	0	0	0