Taking a week off work to go fishing may not sound like the best way to get ahead financially, but for one angler, it turned out to be the best use of vacation time possible.
Chris Spurr didn’t expect anything too crazy when he took off work for a week to fish the Durapanel 90 Mile Beach Snapper Bonanza. He wanted to win at least enough to cover lost wages – about $1,000.
He ended up earning those lost wages back and then some when he and three friends went home with an incredible $37,100 in prize money.
The competition ran from Tuesday to Sunday and saw 835 anglers catch 880 fish.
Spurr, who is from Grisborne, New Zealand, went home with the heaviest fish out of everyone, a 13.6lb snapper. He won $30,000 cash for his catch and an additional $2,000 for getting the biggest snapper of the day.
When he hooked up with the fish he had no idea what he was about to reel in.
“There were multiple fishermen to my right at the time,” said Spurr. “I knew it was a good fish but didn’t think it could end up being the heaviest. It looked to be an average fish.”
The crazy thing is, he and his crew didn’t even think it was worth getting weighed at first. Their doubt probably had to do with the fact that the average winning snapper for the competition is just over 21 pounds, with the largest ever being a whopping 26.5 pounder!
“It measured 66cm but because we didn’t think it was big enough to be weighed, we put it in a chill bin and continued fishing.”
He and his friends are going to share the $32,000 he won and the $5,100 they won.
“Each of us will get just over $9000 which for me is great because I took one week’s leave without pay and thought I would win at least $1000 in the fishing competition to cover lost wages.”
