The Gamakatsu Team Series Northern Semi Finals was held in conjunction with the North Coast Fishing Bonanza and anglers from up and down the coast come to put their skills to the test against the best teams of the year.

With fish tough to find, and stiff competition all anglers had a hard time finding the goods. But those who did came in with smiles and high hopes of making the top 10 to get into the GTS Grand Final with the Attack boat up for grabs.

Team Samurai Reaction Rods with Tristan Taylor and David McKenzie, managed to pull in the biggest bag of the day weighing 3.16kg! They walked away with $2000 cash, a Hobie Kayak fully equipped and valued at over $5500, two Samurai Reaction Rods worth $900 and $1500 worth of fantastic products from Atomic, Gamakatsu, Unitika, Megabass and Bassday!

With no time for a prefish, the team headed to the porpoise wall and started casting deep Atomic Hardz Crank 38s in muddy prawn covered with Megastrike Crawfish formula parallel with the wall.

“We discussed the need to make every fish count, and not lose any fish,” David said.

“Just after that on the first cast came our first smoking to a great fish which gave us a bit of a laugh and had Ramjet (Tristan) upset for a few minutes.”

Within 20 minutes they had two quality fish in the well, both around 30cm to the fork. With the tide running in, clean water then hit the wall and seemed to shut the bite down so they headed to flats behind the wall. Half an hour later they still had no fish, so they headed back to the porpoise wall and began casting Atomic Metalz blades in various colours to the base of the wall, assuming the fish had headed deeper with the clearer water and sun out.

Team Samurai Reaction completed their bag with Atomic Metalz landing two 35cm fork length bream and another solid 30cm fish by 10:30. Using 3lb Unitika fluorocarbon and 8lb Unitika super PE braid, they immediately drove the boat away from the wall after hooking fish, dragging the fish into open water before slowly bringing the fish to the boat.

“The Samurai Reaction 201s absorbed the pressure when the fish tried to run back to the wall, and no doubt helped us to land the fish we did,” said David.

The gear used was a combination of Samurai Reaction 201s and 203s matched with Megabass Luvito 256s and a brand new Megabass Caiyen 256 spooled with 8lb Unitika braid with 3lb and 4lb Unitika fluorocarbon leaders.

David ‘TNB’ McKenzie and Tristan ‘Ramjet’ Taylor would like to say a huge thanks to Samurai Reaction and Atomic for their continued support.

“We are very lucky to use the gear we do, and their generosity makes losing 20 or so lures today bearable. Thanks also Matt Williams for the tipoff that fish were on the porpoise wall.”

In second place was Darren Borg and Declan Williams of Team TT, who after a bad days prefish managed to grab a bag of 2.95kg which won them $500 plus a couple of Samurai Reaction Rods.

The team spent most of their day cranking the walls near the mouth of the river. After catching a few and clearer water coming in with the tide, they changed tactics and started to use soft plastics with TT jigheads.

Both members were trying out some custom rods from Duff Rods and Gary Howard and were very pleased with the gear! Team TT would like to thank TT lures for their continued support throughout the year.

Third place went to team Quintrex, Joel Madan and Kris George, who managed a bag of 2.71kg and walked away with two Samurai Reaction Rods and $250 cash.

They were fishing the reed at the end of porpoise wall, then moved to the shallows using soft plastics with TT hidden weight jigheads with 3lb straight through and Unitika Aiger 6LB leader on braid. The team were using Ian Miller Custom rods attached to a Bass Buster Stella 1000.

Gamakatsu Team Series would like to thank the participants on a great show with the event being held in the Ballina Boat and Leisure Show and the North Coast Fishing Bonanza there were plenty of people around and all the competitors made the event flow smoothly. GTS would also like to congratulate the top 12 teams who made it into the Grand Final with team TT lures already qualifying letting in a tied 11th place teams. – Michael Starkey