Hundreds of local community members and more than 250 fishers flocked to Carnarvon to experience the highly anticipated Carnar-Fin Fishing Competition.
Since its inception in 1992, Carnar-Fin has become an annual spectacle in the Gascoyne region held over the June long weekend, with the fantastic fishing available on Carnarvon’s doorstep being the main star during the week-long event from 27 May – 2 June.
Event coordinators were kept busy constantly updating the whiteboard with the biggest captures across more than a dozen species, with Spanish mackerel, red emperor, coral trout, cobia, trevally and many more species keeping rods bent, reels sizzling and cameras snapping.
As you can see from the beaming smiles in the pictures below – Carnar-Fin helps bring the local community members and fishers from across WA together to have a yarn and celebrate all things fishing.
Recfishwest was there to help out with the Carnar-Fin Kids Fishing Competition, which saw some spectacular species caught and released right on the doorstep of the town marina.
Our Senior Operations Officer Sam Russell was on hand to help teach kids the importance of correct fish handling and releasing, which certainly kept him busy!
“As you can see in the quality snaps, there were plenty of fish caught and it was great to see a lot of smiling youngsters and families wetting a line. The atmosphere here every year is always buzzing and it was great to see people come together for a laugh and friendly chat,” said Sam.
“Captures that are brought in for weigh-in don’t go to waste either and are also kindly distributed around to community members, so there is a great social element to this event every year.”
Big payday for lucky angler
The biggest prize of Carnar-Fin was a 4.6m tinnie valued at a whopping $30,000 up for grabs in the raffle, which saw mad fisher Kieran Pirini lost for words as the eventual winner, with proceeds from ticket sales being reinvested back into the community.
Western Angler’s Scott Coghlan had the pleasure of being MC for the event and didn’t want to miss out on the sensational fishing – even he towed his boat up and managed to reel in some impressive mulloway and trevally alongside his fishing mate Glenn Edwards.
“Every day the crowd was excited to see the catches rolling in and there is a huge sense of positivity, connection and friendly banter between everyone who comes to Carnar-Fin each year. Fishing events like this form the fabric of coastal community towns like Carnarvon and they are crucially important for the social and mental wellbeing of everyone attending,” said Scott.
Check out some of the amazing snaps and captures from Carnar-Fin below and click here to visit the event’s Facebook page!
