If the 2026 Pirtek Fishing Challenge had a defining lesson for one Murrumbidgee bank-walker, it was a small one with a big bite: tighten your drag every time you put your reel on the ground. "My drag was loose," Aus_Outdoor_Nomad confessed after losing what should have been an early Pirtek fish. "That's so frustrating. By no means felt massive. So if there's one lesson to take out of this, it's when you're doing bank walking and you're crawling up banks and stuff and put your reel on the ground, you got to check your drag often enough to make sure it's tight."
The Pirtek Fishing Challenge, Australia's largest one-day charity fishing event, drew thousands of anglers across the country over the weekend. Aus_Outdoor_Nomad's three-day mission on the Murrumbidgee — a pre-fish on the Friday and full sessions on the Saturday and Sunday — captured what most Pirtek competitors will recognise: long walks, hot coffees, missed fish, and the occasional moment of glory.
The river itself was the star of the weekend. "The river is fishing probably the best it's fished in several years," he said during the Saturday session. "It's low. It's super clear. I even tried sight-casting some carp, which I nearly got. The pressure is amazing at the moment, two days, one day after the new moon. The clarity of the river is phenomenal. Couldn't really ask for any better conditions."
Friday's pre-fish set the tone. Mediums and large surface lures, then a switch to a soft plastic on the new VMC Mustache rig in 14g, produced one solid fish in the 50cm range and a likely PB cod that was bumped on a second cast. Saturday morning came in cooler, which the angler bet would shut down the smaller fish and bring out the bigger ones. He picked up a 60cm trout cod on the surface in the first session and a single Murray cod in the afternoon, but the river had also taken its first toll: a $98 Murro Tremor topwater lure, his go-to for the trip, snagged on the edge of a log and unrecoverable.
"That's the face of disappointment right there," his fishing companion said as the camera turned. "I've had that lure forever. Just lost me Tremor. It's not ideal because I caught me PB fishing it this morning. But it's devastating. I'm heartbroken. Absolutely heartbroken."
The lure had been bought on sale during a Complete Angler closing-down clearance. "It was $98. So basically $100. But I bought it when Complete Angler was getting sold. So I think I got it for $45," he said. The companion's response, partly tongue-in-cheek, captured the loss: "I'd like the duck colour, please."
Sunday morning produced the headline fish. After a wedding the previous night and an unenthusiastic 4am alarm, the angler walked back into the same hole he had been working all weekend. "There just has to be something big on this log," he said before the cast. "There can't not be."
A boof, then weight. Then disbelief. "Oh, that was a good fish. Didn't really feel any weight. That could have been the one fish we were after. Oh yeah, it's a good fish. This could be a PB." The fish was duly landed — a personal-best Murray cod on the Murro Tremor before it was lost, taken in the back-eddy of a steep edge.
The rest of Sunday was harder. The angler made the call to push deeper after the fish, scrambling down banks looking for carp pods and big logs that might hold another keeper. There were a few follows, a few near-misses, and a quiet acceptance that the morning fish was likely the best of the day.
The weekend's tackle line-up was lean. The Tranx 300 paired with a Murro 1- to 5-ounce rod handled the topwater duties, while a Cod Raider rod and Revo Winch reel covered the subsurface work. The new VMC Mustache rig in 14g earned a quiet endorsement after delivering its biggest fish first time out.
Final tally for the Pirtek weekend: two fish landed, including a personal-best cod, three days of bank-walking, one lost premium lure, and a reminder that on the Bidgee in late autumn 2026, when the river is low and clear and the moon is right, even tired legs can still walk into a PB.
