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Johnson Dominates Richmond River Drain-fest

Chinchilla’s Mick Johnson had a day to remember on the first day of the Atomic round of the 13 Fishing BASS Pro Series on the Richmond River. He threw topwater frogs in a series of drains running into the river proper to put together a seemingly insurmountable 8.37kg of Australian bass.

Come Day 2 and suddenly the impossible seemed possible. With Cameron Hall and Dylan Walsh quickly assembling quality limits and Johnson stuck on a single fish for what seemed like hours, the live scoreboard told a story. That story was ‘catch your limit or lose this event.’

With a couple of hours to go, Johnson downsized his soft plastic offering to a diminutive Rapala Crush City Suspect and the fish started to flow.

By the end of the session, he’d won by over 2kg and pocketed $4,250 for his efforts, which consisted on a $3,000 winner’s payout and a bonus $1,000 from Atomic for running an Atomic sticker on his boat as well as the $250 bonus for the highest placed Mercury owner.

“I admit that I did start to look at the scoreboards when I only had a couple of fish at 10:30 and I started to panic a little,” Mick said, “you can’t back off in these events because someone will always catch them.”

Mick caught 10-12 bass on Day one, and they were the right ones, with several fish in the high-40cm class. On Day One, his main bait was a Daiwa Kikker Curly frog that he fished in a rotation of drains from ‘Lismore to Woodburn’.

After the drains suffered from a heap of pressure, Mick downsized to a Rapala Crush City Suspect in Motor Oil colour that he fished on a 2/0 worm hook.

“The heavy hook allows the bait to sink a little, so I could use it as a topwater or subsurface presentation,” he said.

Mick delivered the bait on a 13 Fishing Omen ML 6’8” coupled with a Shimano Vanford spin reel loaded with 17lb Sufix Egi braid and 15lb Sufix leader.

“That rig has the tip to cast the smaller baits but the strength to haul them out of there. Every bass came over logs and sticks. Some came over 10 sticks on the way in,” he continued.

With his instant qualification into the BASS Pro Grand Final already redeemed after his win at Lake Glenmaggie in February, Second placed Dylan Walsh got the Golden Ticket to St Clair.

WALSH A SOLID SECOND

Lismore’s Dylan Walsh made the most of his first BASS Pro entry for 2024 to take home $1,625 for second place and an auto-invite into this year’s Grand Final, due to the fact that Mick Johnson has already qualified for the year.

“This year I learned from my mistakes at previous events and concentrated on fishing like I usually do and not trying to change and fish like someone else,” he said.

The tactic yielded his two consistent bags and a healthy payout. He led the event for a while on Day 2.

In the mornings, he would fish in the snags at the mouth of Swan Bay with several other boats and bag a quick limit until the bite slowed down. After that he’d fish the current-washed banks of the main river with a beetle-spin to add to his limit, following the flow to keep the bass biting.

Dylan used a Daiwa Zillion reel spooled with Atomic Linez 16lb braid and 10lb Sunline FC Rock leader with a Bassman #2 beetle spin (gold blade) matched with a 1/4oz Bassman head and a 3” Gold Rush coloured Z Man Diezel Minnow. The rod was a Samaki Zing 2-6lb 6’4”.

“I didn’t expect the river to fish so well during the event - it’d been really tough right up to the prefish ban,” he said, “and it’s been fishing great ever since the tournament.”

Walsh also wants to come and fish one or both of the SEQ BASS Pro rounds - depending on how work shapes up. Both rounds are mid-week.

LAST TO FIRST PLACE TURNAROUND

Chris Rawlings did not have a spectacular Clarence River event. When he added a late penalty to a small bass, he finished dead last. Three days later he was at the other end of the field, picking up a 13 Fishing outfit and great Rapala pack as well as some cash and a fancy trophy for winning the Richmond River event.

It shows that you can experience the highs and lows of this sport in a single week.

Two consistent bags over two days was enough to beat Grafton local Mat Cameron into second place by nearly 500g.

“The first day I drew Glen Bailey and it was in insane morning. We fished a snag around the mouth of Swan Bay and you could hear the bass chopping into bait when we got there. I had six fish in the first 40 minutes and it was some of the best bass fishing I’d ever experienced,” Chris said.

The second day Chris fished with another local, Greg Burke, and visited an entirely different part of the river.

“We started at the Broadwater mill outlet and I landed a decent bass on a TN60 rigged with a single hook. After missing some topwater fish on some banks we ended up at the Woodburn reef and I landed three more fish on a deep crankbait,” he continued.

The bait was a Storm Arashi Rattling Deep 10 crankbait in Tilapia colour (now discontinued) that he fished on a Millerods SwitchFreak UL paired with a Daiwa Tatula 100SH reel loaded with 15lb J-Braid Grand and a 12lb fluorocarbon leader.