Performance of the Favorite Team at ABT
Hello everyone, Maksym here. I wanted to share a personal report on my first championship experience in Australia. It was an exciting journey, full of learning and challenges.
I started preparing for the championship long before the event itself, as I planned to participate in a tournament that was much closer. ABT Tournaments organizes a series of competitions with cumulative ratings. However, something went wrong that time, and I didn’t have a partner, so I ended up as a spectator. But my lures were ready, and the hooks were sharpened.
I based my preparation on my entire trout fishing arsenal and added some lures from my experience in perch competitions. Time flies quickly, and soon I was on a plane that took me to the Gold Coast.
On the first day, I was assigned to a boat with the renowned champion and this year’s number one, Mark Healey. Great, this guy definitely knows where and how to catch fish. My task was simple – quickly understand what and how to do, and try to add something of my own.
From all the videos and reports I had seen, they usually used lures weighing no more than 2-3 grams. But the place where we came to fish was unusual. The strong current created by the tide and the bottom relief made fishing with such weights impossible. Only many years of experience and an understanding of the current allowed me to catch my fish and take 22nd place out of 42 non-boater participants.
I caught my fish with Noike Australia twisters and Jackall Australia craws. My Favorite rods, as always, did not let me down – they handled all the fish perfectly, and there were no issues during the landing. The mistakes are clear – my lures are too light for this type of fishing, so I need to change everything drastically.
After the first day, I realized that changes were needed. Finding myself in 22nd place felt like being in a hole too deep to climb out of. With so many tournaments behind me, I was used to leading, not playing catch-up. After the weigh-in of the first round, I took a taxi to the nearest tackle shop, which turned out to be Mark Berg’s Addict Tackle. The staff provided valuable advice, and we had a pleasant conversation. Meeting positive people is always nice.
On the second day, my partner was Liam Carruthers, a well-known angler in Australia with over 10 years of competition experience. Yesterday, we saw his boat, and I was familiar with today’s location, but this time I was better prepared. Quickly catching my first bream, I faced a series of obstacles and had to find the right technique. I tried many lures, but the most effective was from Rapala Australia. Although the bites were infrequent, the fish were of good size, which is crucial in such tournaments where you need to present the three largest bream. In the end, I won the second day, with my largest bream weighing 745 grams. During the award ceremony, I was announced as the fourth-place finisher. A respectable result for my first start, but the hunger for victory remains strong… It’s been a while since I last won.
Thanks to my mentors in this tournament, Mark Healey and Liam Carruthers, for their guidance. Thanks to the organizers, ABT Tournaments, for holding a high-level event with intense competition. And thanks to my friends, Thomas Eisenhammer and Brenden R Fishing, for their support and direction. Now it’s time to chase some tuna, and then we’ll start preparing for the next season.
I hope you enjoyed this report on my first championship in Australia. Stay tuned for more updates and tips on fishing from Favorite!