This year it coincides with the NSW Gone Fishing Day, an event designed to encourage families to spend time together wetting a line and hopefully enjoying the thrill of catching a fish.

Goulburn’s fishing competition has been running for several years, hosted by Josh Lambert of Tackle World Goulburn, with assistance from Cr Andrew Banfield, also a keen fisherman

The wind picked up over the dam a little after 7am and got progressively stronger. This meant that family groups who had decided to take the kids fishing and pick up a free rod, reel and some tackle for the young ones had to seek out sheltered spots to set up their day camps.

Besides attracting local fisher folk, several visitors from other parts of the state decided to give the competition a go. Some competitors took to the waterway on canoes or light electric motor powered ‘tinnies’ to troll the deeper dam recesses or get to special less accessible spots.

Josh Lambert was at the spillway wall car park for people to register or report their catches. He had heard of several fish caught in the week before the contest. In the first hour of competition there was a report of one that got away and an unconfirmed catch.