No matter what level you compete at, if you enjoy fishing tournaments of any kind, you probably appreciate the camaraderie and friendships you develop with your like-minded competitors. I have made so many friends over the years, fishing locally, at the national level and even internationally.
Back in 2022, Carl Jocumsen, one of my best friends on the Bassmaster Elite Series, invited me over to Australia, where he is from, to compete with him in the ABT (Australian Bass Tournaments) Barra Tour. Barramundi are one of the top sportfish in the land Down Under, and there are multiple tournament series for them.
I had so much fun that first year that I returned in 2023, even though Carl couldn’t make it. My friend Bryan Gustafson joined me, and we fished the four-tournament leg of the tour taking place near the city of Mackay, along the northeast coast of Australia.
This year, Carl was able to go again so we teamed up and had a blast over the 10 days of fishing.
The format for these events is similar to our bass tournaments in North America, even though the barramundi are much bigger than the bass we chase back home. We fished four events where the goal is to catch the five biggest fish we can to include in our bag. Instead of putting the fish in a livewell and bringing them back for a weigh-in, we measure the fish in the boat, take a photo and release them. They are then assigned a weight based on their length in centimeters.
Three of the four tournaments featured eight-hour sessions, similar to how we run our events, except the hours are from 4 p.m. to midnight. It would get dark around 7 p.m., so over half of the session would be in the dark. It’s the start of summer in Australia, and temperatures during the day were getting hot (in the 90s), so the timing was nice. Also, barramundi bite better under the shadow of darkness.
The fourth event was a marathon “all-nighter” where we fished from 4 p.m. until 8 a.m. the following morning — 16 hours of straight fishing! This event has become popular among the anglers, even though it is a grinder on the body. We stayed up and fished through the night because live results were available throughout the tournament, and we knew we were in a fight for the win. The last couple of hours in the morning were brutal, I could hardly keep my eyes open, but we made it through and barely squeaked out the win.
We fished three different waterbodies during the tour this year, which they call “dams” in Australia. Our best finish before this year was third place back in 2022. We really stepped it up this year, finishing third, second, first and 15th in the four events that we fished. It was really cool to get a win, competing against some of the best anglers in Australia. These guys have top-notch equipment and know how to catch fish, like the best anglers in North America.
There are a couple of reasons why I have had so much fun on my trips across the Pacific to do this. The first is barramundi are probably the most violent, hardest-fighting fish I’ve ever caught. The bites are savage — like its hard to explain with words. Almost every one of them jumps multiple times, and they test your equipment to its limits. We had several of them break lines, split rings and hooks. You definitely aren’t landing them all. We use heavy bass tackle to fish for them because if you use tackle that is too heavy, you simply won’t get any bites. You need to have a little bit of finesse in your presentation.
The second reason why this trip has become one of my favorites is I have made some great friends fishing these events. Around 40 teams compete in each tournament, and it is a top-notch group of people. They have all been helpful and open, hoping for us to catch these awesome fish, and they are all about having a good time. The help will probably cool down a little bit moving forward because we had a pretty nice run this year.
Another American angler, Jacob Wheeler, also made the trip over to compete this year, teaming up with Australian Tim Morgan. It was Wheeler’s first time fishing for barramundi, but he showed why he is arguably the best angler in the world right now. They won the first two events of the tour. He brought the jighead/minnow technique that has become so popular in North America over the past couple of years, used in conjunction with forward-facing sonar, and showed everybody how it is done. Impressive stuff.
I’m not sure yet if I’ll be able to return again in 2025, but I hope to. There is no doubt I’ll be back again at some point to see my Aussie friends and catch these awesome fish.
If you ever get the chance to visit Australia, it’s a great country with some of the best fishing opportunities in the world.
