Barra Classic Wrap-up:Ben Job
We arrived to the daly river on the 7th of may, leaving us with 4 days of pre fishing leading up to the 5 days of competition. Myself and my other team mates (Ross McCubbin and Brad Job) which is also our flathead classic team, caught plenty of fishin pre-fishing both casting and trolling up to 107cm, including one hot session of 20 or so barra all 80-97cm in only an hour. We had a slow start to day 1, not boating our first fish until 11.30, 3 painful hours into the fishing time. we had a bit of mixed luck catching a few more and losing plenty. we ended day 1 with 8 fish and 545 points, positioned 19th with plenty of work and 4 days ahead of us.
Day 2 was showing far more promising starting with a bit of a flurry of fish but no real size to speak of, but all still scoring points. we spent the day trolling deep diving lures in extremely heavy cover, getting stitched up in the snags was fairly regular this made it pretty exciting fishing, we ended day 2 with 17 fish and 990 points, positioned 6th.
Day 3 our plan was very much the same as we stayed in the heavy cover which we named “tiger country” as it was a bit like fishing in an under water jungle because there was so many snags. 
We ticked fish over for most of the day with a few nice ones up to 87cm this was a big day for us with Brad the quite achiever getting champion angler for the day with an impressive 850 points. we caught a total of 13 fish for the team and scored 1150 points, positioned 3rd. Day 4 was started a bit like day one with a couple of big fish lost due to pulled hooks and getting back to the snags. we landed our first fish around lunch time and we scratched together a quick 8 fish of fair size and 690 points, luck was on our side and the competetors ahead of us also did it tough and we ended day 4 on top, positioned 1st by about 215 points.
As day 5 came upon us we knew a solid day would almost certainly see us a barra classic win, now the 3 of us are all seasoned tournament anglers, so we decided on a game plan for the day on the one and a half hour run down the river. lines were in at 7am and even though we had film crews following us doing interviews etc we were doin our best to stay focused on the task at hand, though barra fishing can be a bit of a lotto at the best of time and keeping fish on the line can be a real challenge especially with the tournament rule of barbless hooks. Luck just wasnt on our side and we continued to lose far too many fish with a few exceeding 90cm which is almost 300 points. This was our worst day landing only 3 fish for 295 points. we finshed the tournament 4th out of 51 teams, although we didnt win we were more than pleased in being so close on an unfamiliar track. BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR!
