LOCAL competitors have taken a major share of the prizemoney in the rich Megabream Forster two-day competition, part of the new week-long Forster Fishing Carnival.
Competitors came from the three eastern States to contest the Megabream on Saturday and Sunday, after a pre-fish session on Friday.
While Friday and Saturday provided excellent weather conditions, it was Sunday’s cold and blustery conditions that resulted in better bag numbers and improved weights.
The organisers, abtBREAM, together with Forster Fishing Carnival’s Max Frost were thrilled with the turnout and the results, and the visitors’ continuing enthusiasm for Forster as a prolific catch-and-release bream tournament host.
The contest was a skins event, giving the top five contenders on each day a rich purse totalling around $30,000.
Local competitors came out on Saturday with everything firing, taking first, second, third and fifth prizemoney.
On Sunday it was an Alpine Country team which blitzed first place, but locals again took second, third and fourth prizemoney.
Overall, with the two days tallied, locals were in first, second, third and fifth placings.
Saturday saw a win to the Rusty Hooks team of local tournament anglers Andrew Howard and Daniel Brown. They filled their allotted bag of five bream with a total weight of 4.25 kilos, to take home $5000.
Second was another local combination, Team Pflueger (Andrew Homann and Russell Babekuhl) with a bag of five weighing 3.41kgs and a payout of $2000.
The Graham Barclay Marine sponsored team of newcomers Grant Manusu and Shaun Chapman took third prize of $1250 with five fish weighing 3.29kgs.
Fourth were visitors Gamakatsu (Michael Starkey and Dean Silvester) winning $1250, and fifth the local combination Mark Healey and Karen Scully, sponsored by Forster Beach Caravan Park, taking home $1000.
Day two saw the Bilfinger/Alpine Country team of Cameron Whittam and Damien Domagala pocket the $5000 first prize with five fish weighing 4.43 kilos, and in second place was the Tuncurry Auto Electricians team of Peter McKinnon and Martin Richardson with 4.28kgs.
Another local combo, Adam Ward and John Startin for team Evinrude E-Tec/Squidgy Pro Range took third while the Graham Barclay Marine team of Grant Manusu and Shaun Chapman showed consistency in pocketing another $1250 for fourth place.
Visitors, Team Shimano of Mark Dunphy and Chris Cleaver finished fifth. Day one’s leaders, Andrew Howard and Daniel Brown could only manage 12th spot on day two, while Andrew Homann and Russell Babekuhl – second on day one – failed to repeat their earlier performance and filled ninth spot. The Tuncurry Auto Electricians’ team combined performance over two days saw them lead the pointscore with a combined weight of 10 bream of 7.25kgs.
Second overall went to Howard and Brown with 7.04 kgs, while newcomers Manusu and Chapman were elated with their third place overall, their 10 bream making 6.85kgs. Other local teams to finish in the top 10 overall were Ward and Startin in fifth, Homann and Babekuhl in sixth, Darren Borg and Kris Hickson in seventh and Healey and Scully in eighth.
Six prizes of $500 for the three biggest bream on each day went to Howard and Brown/Starkey and Silvester (shared) Healey and Scully, Whittam and Domagala, McKinnon and Richardson and Ward and Startin.
After each day’s weigh-in, the bream were on show in the huge Reef Science display tank, and were released back into the waterways of Wallis Lake with the help of local schoolchildren.
The Forster Fishing Carnival continues all this week with competitions for everyone, including Squidgies Flathead Megabucks, a Snapper on Plastics day, Kids’ Day and the six-day general fishing competition with weigh-ins each day. Special guest at several activities later this week is former footballer-turned fisho ET, Andrew Ettingshausen.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter