THE 2013 North Coast Fishing Bonanza presented by Gamakatsu and Evinrude was held from September 25 to 29.
The new format involving four days of fishing was a hit with over 300 competitors chasing a wide variety of inshore and offshore species. The weather was sublime, allowing anglers plenty of time to chase that winning fish with some quality fish caught and photographed. At the show site on the banks of the Richmond River, daily talks attracted plenty of interest with some enthusiastic youngsters getting involved in the soft plastics demonstrations.
The event attracted good numbers to the prize give aways and practical fishing seminars.
Over the four fishing days, some notable captures included a 93.5cm flathead to Mitch Bailey, a 54.5cm bass to Aiden Kane and a 124.3cm kingfish to Boyd Buschman who bumped off good mate Andrew Mclennan from first place. They were both fishing from Andrew’s boat, so we will see if Boyd gets an invitation back out with Andrew next time around!
In the Cadet category a 75.6cm flathead took out first place for Clare Joblin and Rhys Riches managed the biggest whiting with a whopping 42.8cm model. In fact, all the winning whiting were over 42cm across all categories which goes to show the health of the system this year.
Despite all the fish prizes, the Cadet and Adult boats plus the other lucky draw prizes were the reason most people entered and Lachlan Johnson will be glad he was upgraded from a Junior to a Cadet as he won the boat and motor package courtesy of Gamakatsu, TABs boats, Evinrude and Lowrance. He fished most of the comp on the wharf adjacent to the show area but we know where he’ll be next year. It’s always great to see a young local win such a massive prize and he was “stoked” as they say!
The Adult prize boat went to Michael Muldoon, who did wet a line, only caught bait and unfortunately managed to drop his iPad into the live bait tank … despite this run of bad luck he still managed the major lucky door prize! There were also a host of winners of everything from Samurai rods to Shimano estuary packs, Penn combos, Mako sunglasses, Sony cameras, Engel fridges and Eskies courtesy of Boat Box.
Once again the event was a massive hit with organisers looking to add more categories, perhaps have a fun dress up day and go bigger next year. Make sure you put the dates in your diary. you don’t even need to fish but could still walk away with a host of prizes.
For more information visit, www.fishingcomps.com.au/ncfb
Stay tuned to Fisho for photo comp entries from the 2013 NCFB.
