The suspense filled grand finale adult draw down had some 24 prizes won with the last person standing being lucky Donna Small who went home with the super Mitsubishi Signature Suzuki boat Package. Photo: Greg Haines & exstatic Donna Small.

Des Ilka with his 4.7650kg Snapper

It’s one of Queensland’s biggest family fishing competitions, celebrated over 8 days and it get bigger & better every year. 2008 being no exception as it concludes for another year.

Once again the events competitor numbers exceeded organizers expectations with a 35% increase.  The major sponsors Mitsubishi & Signature Suzuki rewarded participants with a new first prize boat package worth $20,000.00, doubling the winning from previous years.

As always Rainbow Beach put on a show of great fishing and entertainment. 
Crowds were entertained over the 8 days with entertainment scheduled for during the day, weigh-in and presentation.  Agro entertained both the adults and kids on kid’s day, Phippsy cooked up a seafood storm while the crowd were invited to taste Jimbour Wines, Dave Downie found out some of the local fishing secretes and divulged them to the crowd and the police play station and movie van kept the kids busy most nights. Anybody owning a Mitsubishi vehicle was rewarded with a few hours in the VIP tent, canapés, drinks, a fishing rod & tackle pack from Jarvis Walker.   Rainbow Shores Resort ran a Golf Tournament in conjunction with the event providing an alternative to fishing.  The tournament provided two fantastic prizes, a holiday at the resort including $240.00 cash, which were awarded at the grand finale presentation.  Zinc Fm introduced Jamie Dunn and the Zoo to Rainbow Beach at the beginning of the event, Bilco & Phippy’s also did a live broadcast from the event grounds on the last Friday. Saturday was wrapped up with a visit from the channel 9 chopper and the crew from the new program due to go to air next season “My Coast”.

The prize pool exceeded the 100k mark with this years sponsors being very generous.  The prizes included a lot of cash, fishing tackle, esky’s, sponsors apparel, VHF radios, GPS’s, cooking appliances, camping gear, 4WD gear, fuel vouchers, fantastic holidays, fishing charters and a whole lot more.

The kids were very well looked after with nightly prizes given at random for weighing in fish, they had their very own draw down prize pool, first prize being an Allen’s Surf Board and the overall winners and runners up’s received cash prizes with apparel at the finale presentation night.

The 2008 grand prize, Signature boat package, was won by a local fishing women, Donna Small who was nothing less than ecstatic with her win.  2nd prize went to Duane Monckton from Hervey Bay and 3rd was awarded to Craig Schultz from Pacific Paradise.
This is the second year running that the prize has been won by a women, last years $10,000.00 cash first prize was won by Patricia Leach from Maleny.

The event organizers are very well aware of it’s success and with the success comes responsibility, as the event continues to grow and prosper the organizers have decided, for the 2009 event, a new category of catch & release within the flathead species will be introduced.  This will be the beginning of more of these categories been opened up to catch and release in the future.

Adult category - BEACH

Adult category - REEF

Kids category - BEACH

MAJOR DRAW DOWN - ADULT

Stan Wallace(left) $1000.00 Random 
1st place REEF species Winner