This year’s event was highlighted by a stunning victory to Team Venom, a team that consisted of our NSW rep Shane Banks, his mate Aaron Lawson and Inverell local, Venom supported angler and cod whisperer Josh Usher.
The Copeton Yella Challenge is a ‘by weight’ event where anglers fish for their team’s best 10 golden perch and weigh them in over the sessions to accumulate their total weight. The fish are assessed by the weigh master and they must swim away healthy or they do not count towards your total.
Shane said “Fishing with Aaron and Josh meant hopes were high after a good pre-fish on Friday, although this quickly faded early Saturday morning as we passed our two prime spots and both had multiple boats fishing over them for the local RSM comp.
“Leaving the first session in 31st place we motored over to an area about 150m from where we really wanted to be, but Josh was confident we could still pick off a few fish and he was spot on.
“Having a local that is dialled in really helped and within a few casts Josh was into our first golden for the comp.
“This was quickly followed by another and then another until we had 5 in the tank and were off back to the weigh station to have our first weigh in.
“We had our full limit of 10 fish by mid-morning and it was time to set about upgrading, which was a great feeling so early in a 2 day competition.
“In between solid upgrades Josh came up tight on a massive fish and immediately called it for a cod and it turned out to be a ripper. 105cm on 8lb leader was a great effort and although not what we were after it was a welcome addition to the day’s catch.
“By the end of the day we had caught 25 fish and upgraded multiple times and had the feeling we were right in the comp. At dinner that night they announced the top 10 teams and we had a massive 5kg lead, which is when the nerves started to kick in.
“With most teams still having plenty of room for upgrades we knew they would be coming for us the next day and we still had some work to do.
“Day 2 the fishing was a lot slower, but 3 good upgrades in the first hour settled the nerves and we were hoping we had done enough to hold on.
“Those 3 fish were very important being 1.5kg worth of upgrade to see us hold on and win the comp by just over 1kg from a fast finishing field.
“This was our first ever AYC win and all 3 of us were stoked with the result in a quality field,” finished Shane.
During the competition the majority of the fish on small metal blades slowly hopped along the bottom on 8lb Wilson FC leader. The rods used were Live Fibre Blade N Tails Ultralights matched to 1000 sized threadline reels spooled with 6lb Zerek Hybraid
Contact
AYC Fishing
W: www.aycfishingtournaments.com
