2024 VMR Bundy Fishing Classic round up

The last weekend in June is always a special time of year as it plays host to the annual VMR Bundaberg Family Fishing Classic.

Held at Burnett Heads, the VMR Bundy comp is well organised and attracts a great bunch of people trying to either catch a few fish or simply soak up the atmosphere of the event and chance their hand at winning one of the many great prizes.

For us, we always pencil it in the calendar.

At the very least, it is a great opportunity to catch up, have a few beverages and try snagging a few fish.

One of the many appeals of Burnett Heads is the variety of fishing on offer.

This is reflected in the competition categories, with prizes for a wide range of estuary and offshore species.

Thanks to our friend Jarrod, we are fortunate to have access to a large boat and tend therefore to target fish offshore if the weather allows, with red emperor being the most prized species.

The cobia category also holds a special place for locals, with some huge black kingfish calling the region home.

Hopes were high as we made our way up to Burnett Heads from Brisbane on the Thursday at varying times.

 

I was fortunate to get away a little earlier than usual and, after about a four-hour drive, it was straight to the Lighthouse Hotel.

I should have known we were in for a good sortie when we were greeted with chicken parmigiana night.

After a cold brew to open the trip, a massive parmi was promptly placed in front of me.

It was that massive part of me wanted to weigh it in at the competition site!

I got to work and made my way through it, with a few beverages to assist in the washing-down process.

Post dinner, it was back to the house and into bed, with an early start planned on the Friday given the 10-knot forecast offshore.

Before we knew it, we had made our way offshore with the sun shining and a simple plan of catching live bait then chasing coral trout or sweetlip in shallow ground.

 

The first part of the plan was successful, with pike and yakka showing up in good numbers.

As I’ve mentioned in countless articles, it always pays to drop a live bait on the grounds you’re catching them on, though this particular morning, we didn’t tempt any decent fish.

My friend Kenton took a slightly different approach, deciding to float line a fillet of fresh pike to the bottom on a fairly heavy sinker.

What followed was absolute mayhem.

Suddenly, he was bent over the side of the boat as the fish he’d hooked took a massive powerful run under the boat.

We quickly pulled all the other lines in as Kenton’s brother-in-law Kane jumped on the wheel and positioned the boat.

After a few brutal minutes of slugging it out on the bottom, the fish ran back at the boat, with a few expletives from Kenton indicating initially that it was lost.

Luckily for us, this was not the case and his line tightened again as the fish turned and made for the surface.

 

Thoughts of a shark had entered our heads, though given the run to the surface was very typical behaviour of a cobia or black kingfish, we began to feel a little more positive.

Sure enough, after a few more minutes, we got a glimpse of an enormous cobia belting it out on the surface about 30m from the boat.

We all went a little weak at the knees – I’m sure Kenton felt the pressure as we frantically cleared the deck, located the gaff, grabbed the net and prepared for the task of getting this animal into the boat.

That task proved tricky, yet with yours truly on the gaff, we eventually got it done, losing a landing net in the process.

I must say, it was the most nervous I had ever been before a gaff shot.

The high fives connected and with a lot of yelling, we stared in awe of the size of the beast – a true fish of a lifetime and one that would surely take a stack of effort to beat in the classic.

It was a good thing we had this fish in the boat because plans A, B, C and D did not pan out on day one.

For some reason it was not happening and apart from a nice coral trout for the table, the cobia provided our only action.

 

We pulled up stumps midway through the afternoon, heading back to port and to the event site to get the cobia weighed.

It tipped the scales at 35.75kg, knocking off a beautiful 20kg fish from the top of the leaderboard.

A slow day, yet one fish made it worthwhile. fishing

With a little wind overnight on the Friday, conditions were set to be less friendly on the Saturday and this proved to be the case.

Our plan was similar to the previous day, though we headed to wider grounds for a chance at catching a greater range of species.

Our main targets were red emperor, coral trout, spangled emperor and tuskfish.

Live bait was again easy to come by and the bite was much hotter than it had been on day one.

However, an extreme abundance of sharks made boating a decent fish near on impossible.

 

The fish we did manage to get to the boat were trevally, cod and a nice spangled emperor – a telltale sign that those getting nailed were likely to be red emperor, coral trout or tuskies.

Much has been spoken and written about shark populations and depredation lately and my experiences are the same as most offshore anglers – never have we lost more fish offshore to sharks than we do currently.

Having spent a lot of time at K’gari over the years, the behaviour of sharks and dingos share many similarities.

Both species seem to be adapting to what’s in front of them, based on increased human interaction – Darwin’s theory of evolution in practice.

Rather than actively hunting, dingos seem to congregate around people on the beach, waiting for an easy feed of food scraps or fish frames in the sand.

Sharks seem no different, conditioned to the noise of an outboard motor and perfectly positioned between it and a school of feeding fish.

Like many, I do not know the answer, however the balance is certainly not right at the moment.

It’s a sad situation when so many fish are perishing at the hands of sharks.

 

The only option in a situation where sharks are feeding is to continually move spots, and that’s what we did.

Eventually, we found some respite and managed to boat a few nice fish.

Four legal reds came aboard but none of those were going to trouble the competition leaders.

Unfortunately, a couple we left down there may have been worth weighing but, in heartbreaking circumstances, we had an instance of hooks pulling right at the boat.

To rub salt into the wound, my snelled leader gave way to a good fish, leaving the top hook with three large red emperor scales on it.

My mood improved when I hooked a good fish and a massive parrotfish hit the surface.

We thought it would be over 4kg, so were stoked when it weighed in officially at 5.38kg.

A new personal best for me and another fish that would be hard to beat in the comp.

 

My brother-in-law Micka nailed a few nice spangled emperor and a decent coral trout, so all in all, it was a decent day, though one that could have been an all-time cracker with less sharks and more luck!

Sunday morning was spent weighing fish and cleaning up before we headed to the competition site at lunchtime for the final draw and prizes.

The cobia and parrot held on in their respective categories and Micka took out second in the sweetlip category, beaten by a mere 100g by local gun Keven Charteris.

The raffle and random weight prizes kept the crowd entertained and Kevin’s day got even better when he took home the boat, motor, trailer major prize draw!

So as quickly as it had begun, another year of the VMR Bundy comp was behind us.

We will be back next year for some revenge on those red emperor.

Let’s hope the sharks swim 500km east between now and then.

Catch you.