The Junction Inn Fishing Club's Twin Rivers Classic will likely be held with a new format and in conjunction with the NSW DPI's Gone Fishing Day in late October after it was postponed late last week.
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The competition was set to be held from last Friday evening through to Sunday afternoon, but organisers made the call early on Friday to cancel after rain and wind forecasts increased.
The club were determined to hold the contest after having to cancel it in 2020 because of COVID restrictions, however they were left with little choice.
"It took a while for the intensity of the forecast to ramp up," JIFC's Peter Hughes said.
"We thought it would be irresponsible to try to encourage people to go out and fish in it."
All entrants and cash sponsors were refunded their money. However, Hughes said all donated prizes items had been kept for a rescheduled Twin Rivers tournament.
"It's going to be too hard to do it in April with Easter, Anzac Day and school holidays, and there's quite a few people in the club going away in May," he said.
"The river doesn't fish well in winter so we had a talk about it and we thought, let's do it at the end of October. And we're going to try to coincide it with Gone Fishing Day."
Gone Fishing Day, which is supported by the Recreational Fishing Trusts and the NSW DPI, encourages anglers to get juniors into the sport.
Hughes said the club were also likely to expand the competition boundaries beyond the Hunter and Williams rivers for the October event to encourage more entries and provide greater options for fishos.
The Twin Rivers postponement followed Newcastle Game Fishing Club's move this month of the East Coast Classic and AIBT tournaments to April 24-25 because of wild weather.
TOP KNOCK
Caves Beach angler Steve Norris has been recognised for his "Bradman-like" double century of dusky flathead tags in Lake Macquarie.
Norris became the first to reach 200 tag and releases as part of the NSW DPI's Trophy Fishery Program, which aims to track and preserve large, breeding flathead.
Norris has caught and released 202 70-centimetre plus flatheads, three of which were in the 90-100cm range. Another 27 were between 80cm and 90cm.
Norris tagged the first trophy flathead in Lake Macquarie's program in October 2017. Fifteen of his tagged fish have been recaptured. Norris has recaptured five tagged flathead, including two tagged originally.
Mark "Wilba" Williams heads up the Lake Macquarie section of the program and said Norris' effort was "a pretty awesome achievement".
"He's the top flathead tagger in NSW, he was the first to 100 tagged and now he's the first to 200," Williams said.
"Especially with our local Lake group, he's on another level. The numbers are pretty Bradman-like when it comes to flathead fishing."
The program began in the St Georges Basin and Tuross Head before Lake Macquarie became the third area 12 months later.
"It was local Lake Macquarie anglers who lobbied our local parliamentarians and the NSW DPI Fisheries to be included in the Trophy Flathead Fishery program," Williams said.
"It's a good news story the Lake, we're getting a lot of research that has never been done. We're getting a handle on how the Lake stocks are, the movements and growth rates of the fish.
"The recapture rate is over 10 per cent and one released in the Lake was recaptured at Stockton Beach, so it shows there's movement in and out of the Lake.
"Probably the main thing that has been learnt is how great they are as released fish. One I tagged has been captured and released another two times, so it proves if you handle those fish properly, they survive catch and release very well."
AFTER THE STORM
Enhanced beach fishing could be a silver lining for anglers after last week's massive downpours.
Jason "One For" Nunn, from Fishermans Warehouse, Marks Point, believed muddied estuary and coastal waters should clear up quickly and the huge influx of fresh water into the ocean could stimulate beach fishing for mulloway, bream and flathead.
"We've got some good tides moving through and a full moon on Monday night, so we're going to get a fair exchange of water," he said.
"There must have been a fairly good flush coming out of the Hunter River, so it must have pushed a fair few jew down towards Stockton breakwall and Nobbys, and onto the beaches, so that will be an interesting one.
"Also, all of the mullet must have been pushed seaward, so maybe some very big schools will be pushed around the coastal headlands and beaches.
"If the water does clean up, you will have vast schools of mullet doing the coastal run and other fish chasing them."
He expected reasonably good fishing offshore this weekend with ideal conditions forecast, but he said fishos should be on alert for debris floating out to sea from flood damage further north.
