The Mangrove Jack Social
2019 – Gold Coast
The inaugural Yak Hunters Mangrove Jack Social has just been held over the 19th and 20th of January and after such a successful (and what many thought was an ambitious concept) event we are certainly going to put this into our yearly schedule and make it an event for years to come! 
A big part of our vision at Yak Hunters Australia is to bring the fishing community together and make an inclusive and safe environment for anyone to come along and enjoy the great outdoors and fishing in general. It was this vision that led us to want to bring Kayakers, Boaties and Land-based fishos together and unite what is often a very fragmented subset of anglers to go out and chase the very elusive and addictive Mangrove Jack.
We chose the ever-reliable Gold Coast region to run the event and put out the word hoping that someone would come along! We soon realised that the formula of hunting Mangrove Jacks, Competition between Boaties, Yakers and Land-based entrants and two days of fishing for over $2200 in Prizes was a brilliant formula and we had a total of 57 people arrive on the 19th to get stuck into the event.
With the ability to fish almost anywhere on the Gold Coast it gave the participants plenty of room and enabled people to keep their secret spots protected and with Yak Hunters Catch, Photo, Release competition format it gave the 2-day event an eco-friendly feel that I’m sure our fishy friends were grateful for!
Once our Anglers received their safety briefing, instructions and given an official Yak Hunters Mangrove Jack Social Brag-mat they were sent on their way for what turned out to be an epic 2 days of fishing.
There were plenty of categories that you could take out to win prizes headlined with the biggest Jack caught at the event which picked up an awesome Dragon Kayak Slayer valued at $800. On top, all the prizes for the main categories also came the bragging rights of who really are the superior fishos between the divisions.
Below is a summary of the winners along with the size of their respective fish.
|
Category |
Winner |
Fish Size |
|
Biggest Jack -Overall |
Rhys Hayes |
53.5cm |
|
Biggest Jack - Lure |
Rhys Hayes |
53.5cm |
|
Biggest Jack - Bait |
Stephanie Ashley |
52cm |
|
Biggest Jack - Kayak |
Brooker Broderick |
49.5cm |
|
Biggest Jack - Boat |
Rhys Hayes |
53.5cm |
|
Biggest Jack - Land |
Lachlan Markwell |
43cm |
|
Smallest Jack |
Timothy Lyons |
21.5cm |
|
Biggest Jack - Junior |
Lachlan Markwell |
43cm |
|
First Jack Caught |
Jack Davis |
30cm |
|
Biggest Trevally |
Stephanie Ashley |
54cm |
|
Biggest Cod |
Jared Beale |
47cm |
Some great stories came out of the day with some people spending over 30 hours on the water fishing through the night, many anglers catching their first ever Mangrove Jack, loads of people upgrading their PB’s as well as plenty of new friendships that were struck up over the weekend. It was great to see everyone really getting along and plenty of war stories being told at the awards afternoon over a few drinks and gourmet BBQ that was run by Yak Hunters very own Jeff Maden who spent a day preparing his smoked goodies for those who were hard at it out on the water.
A special thanks goes out to Jared and Levi from 2deep who pitched in to help out the Yak Hunters Team and a huge thanks to the sponsors for the event Dragon Kayak, Berley Pro, FPV-Power, Tackle World Gold Coast, Diztek, Shads Lures, Gold Coast Halal Meats, John Costello from My Lure Box and 2Deep who generously donated prizes for the event.
Yak Hunters Australia would like to thank all of the competitors who tackled the
competition with a great spirit and energy and we look forward to seeing them all again next year for version 2 of the Yak Hunters Mangrove Jack social for 2020 which will certainly be a bigger event than this year.For more information on the Yak Hunters Kayak Fishing series that is being run across 6 States in 2019 jump onto https://yakhunters.com/pages/2019-kayak-fishing-series or check us out on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/yakhuntersaustralia/