Nicholas Moore | Mackay, QLD

Favourite Technique / Species / Fishing Style

GT popping with sub-surface (waking) stickbaits, jerkbaiting for impoundment barra, and deep lipless crankbaits for impoundment sooties.

Angling Inspiration

GT's - Glanville Heydenrych (He is a freak with all things fishing and one of the best guides for GTs you will ever meet). 

Barramundi - Cy and Kerrin Taylor.

Fishing in General (techniques and styles) - Matt Allen and Tim Little (Tactical Bassin), Kevin van Dam.

My occupation - Spatial analytics - helps drive the thought processes before hitting the water.

My Local (Favourite Fishing Spot)

There is a little spot off one of our islands that is insanely consistent for Big GTs. It has produced numerous awesome captures over the past 10 years popping for GT's in the region. It's not often you find a good GT spot that fires on both the incoming and outgoing tide but this is one of them. You also get good Spanish as bycatch.

Coming from a country that didn’t have barramundi and sooties we had to figure them out from scratch. The hours spent on Teemburra Dam has been insane and the challenges and continual progression that impoundment barra fishing is awesome.

Eungella Dam - Awesome scenery, great camping and an awesome getaway. Impoundment sooties are a totally different fish to their river brethren and I would put Eungella Dam and its sooty fishing right up there at the top of the list. I love the way you can find a distinct pattern then apply that to many parts of the dam to get 50cm fish.

Why I Fish

It all started thanks to my dad. As soon as I had the coordination to hold a rod and reel, I started fishing. This evolved rapidly into lure fishing for largemouth bass and then fly fishing at the age of five. So you can say it's in my blood, which is the underlying driver. However, the reason why I fish is the never-ending learning curve, limitless challenges that fishing presents and deciphering how to conquer them.

For me its the whole journey. All the places it takes you, the people you meet along the way, the thought processes, understanding ecosystems and the endless individual species habitual nuances. With the later so much so that I have a comprehensive database that uses algorithms to predict bite periods based on historical captures. Fishing is my flow activity which concentrates me in the moment.

Tournaments

World Sooty Grunter Championships - May 2019  - 2nd Place out of 101 anglers

World Sooty Grunter Championships - May 2018  - 6th Place out of 92 anglers

Mackay Tournament Anglers Kinchant Team Championship March 2018  - 3rd place

World Sooty Grunter Championships - May 2017  - 4th Place out of 73 anglers

Mackay Tournament Anglers Teemburra Team Challenge - March 2017 - 2nd Place

Mackay Tournament Anglers Teemburra Team Challenge - Feb 2017 - 4th Place

Mackay Tournament Anglers Eungella Sooty Grunter – June 2016 - 1st Place

Mackay Tournament Anglers Eungella Sooty Grunter – April 2015  - 1st Place

Mackay Tournament Anglers Barramundi Team Champion – March 2015  - 1st Place

Mackay Tournament Anglers AOY Runner Up - 2014 

Mackay Tournament Anglers Sooty Grunter Series Runner Up AOY – 2014 

 Tournament Angler Teemburra Barra Runner up – October 2013 

Mackay Tournament Anglers Teemburra Barra – November 2012 - 1st Place

Favourite Fishing Moment

On arrival in Australia, all I had was my fly rod in hand luggage. In the first week in Mackay I went down to the river put in a cast, I had a slight knot in my fly-line so I started undoing it, at that moment the line started peeling through the guides and had a decent fish jumping at the end of the line. Eventually I landed it. It was the first time I had seen this species. The bloke down the bank shouted "great work mate that’s a good barra". This ended up being my first decent fish in Australia.

First time heading out to specifically target GT's. Pulled up at this spot, mates were still rigging their rods. I cast out a stickbait and said “How do you work these things” and first fish nailed the lure and I landed it. It turned out to be a mad day of fishing with multiple GT’ from our doorstep.

We had been fishing a point in Kinchant every week night for almost a month and a half (the spot is now named Saffa/African Point). The fishing was crazy with 20/30 fish sessions common in those weeks. We were in the tackle shops everyday to get more gear and the word soon spread. The night of the giants was one to remember, That night I broke my PB twice with it ending on 119 (the following seasons I had beaten that numerous times with it now at 124cm). It was the captures between all our mates sitting in separate boats side-by-side that made it mental. The biggest fish landed that night was a behemoth 135 by a good mate, and then 123, 122,116,110 and a bunch of other meteries were caught. We were almost rafted up and at any point in time someone was onto a fish.