The 2026 Tackleworld Weipa Catch and Release Barramundi Tournament kicked off this week in the Far North Queensland outpost that locals treat as the spiritual home of run-off barra fishing. Among the competitors was Mick from Micksgonefishing, who uploaded his Day One vlog a day after lines-down, giving anglers back home a ringside seat to the two-day event's opening session on the boat with local Tackle World team member Matty.
Mick set the tone before the first cast, explaining the format. "Rules are for the comp, best five fish, bag limit size starts at 40 cm. There is a smaller species of barra up here, so that's why we started at 40, but we're hoping to get a bag full of fish a bit bigger than that today."
The pair chased the turn of the tide through the mangrove drains, but Mick's morning was defined by the one that got away. A strong fish loaded up in the run-out and chafed through his 40 lb leader before he could turn it. Still visibly rattled on camera, he put the blame squarely on himself. "It's what you get for using 40 lb," he said. "I'm shaking, bro. I'm shaking. That would have been my biggest one for the comp, I reckon. I cannot believe I cooked it that hard."
The fish had committed in exactly the zone he'd forecast, with Mick conceding moments before that the leaf-littered edge was going to be "like a highway" for cruising barra. He'd run lighter leader for finesse and paid the price. His next cast produced another solid hook-up that came unstuck in the snags. "You bricked me. Anyway, that's what you get on the big jobs, mate," he said.
From there, the tournament script flipped. A scoring 53 cm barra came on the boat — "First one for the trip" — and was followed by a 47 cm fish. Then the bycatch went ballistic. Heavy mangrove jacks moved through in schools, with Mick pulling off a genuine first on a glide bait. "I've never caught a jack on a glide," he said after one smashed his 130 mm minnow in four foot of water. "It's got red on it. Weipa mangrove jack tournament."
Golden trevally, queenfish, cod and threadfin salmon all joined the parade as the tide dropped. Mick eventually moved to a surface popper in ankle-deep water, rolling another barra from the mud. "Top water in 4 inches of water," he marvelled. He also offered a theory for why the shallow edges were so loaded with fish. "There's so many sharks here that a lot of these fish are just getting pushed right up into the shallow."
By the time 2:30 pm rolled around, Mick had a five-fish scoring bag of barramundi locked in and Matty was still hunting his first. "Bit of a grind. Very slow in between that high tide and low tide bites that we got. But highlights were the jacks, I reckon," he said. "I got a bag of barra. Poor Matty hasn't got one yet. He probably lost a whole bag. But yeah, I lost the trophy fish for the day."
Day Two will need to make up that trophy-class ground. Mick thanked the Tackleworld Weipa crew for putting on "such a fun event" and teased the Day Two vlog to come. With red-hot conditions, plenty of run-off and good tides, the 2026 edition is already shaping as one of the more productive Weipa comps on record — even before the leaderboards close.
