Bringing people together
s the annual Horsham Fishing Competition closes in on five decades of angling fun along the Wimmera River, Kevin Dellar fondly remembers the competition’s first years.
Mr Dellar, former Horsham mayor and Essendon football player and Horsham Fishing Competition stalwart, was involved with organising the competition from the beginning.
The competition started as a Horsham Apex Club concept in the early 1970s.
Mr Dellar said when club members got talking about hosting a fishing competition in Horsham along the Wimmera River, they realised the ultimate drawcard would be awarding a new car as first prize.
“This was in 1972 when the first competition got going. We went out and bought a brand-new Valiant Galant. It probably cost us about $2500, which now is bugger- all I guess, but it was a bit of money back then,” he said.
Mr Dellar, a long-time businessman, said despite having a car to offer the competition winner, the committee did not expect the large response it received from eager anglers, with thousands of people turning up at registration.
“We were down at the soundshell area in Horsham, which was just a bare paddock then. We put up a registration tent early afternoon and a few people began turning up to register. By about four o’clock, we started to realise the competition might be a little bigger than we originally thought,” he said.
“More and more people kept coming. So many people were turning up to register, we all had to go get our wives to come down and help us out.
“We were there all night and by the time we had called it quits, 4000 people had turned up to register that day.
“People were after the car. By the end of the competition about 5500 people had registered and dropped in a line.”
Mr Dellar said the competition required serious volunteer efforts to run smoothly in its early years to cope with the large influx of anglers to Horsham, especially given the absence of mobile phones and the internet.
“We had no computers to manage any of the registrations or to help with any of the weighing and measuring of fish,” he said.
“We needed so many volunteers. All we had to weigh all the fish was one set of aviary scales.
“Every fish caught had to be brought back to competition headquarters, alive. We kept them all in aerated drums for the remainder of the competition before we would let them go. We didn’t lose too many fish by doing this, but it is much better now. Not even that the fish-judging is easier, but by catching and photographing the fish like we do now, we really minimise the impact on the river.”
Mr Dellar said despite the hard work, the organisers were ‘brilliant’.
“We were confident it was easily the bestrun competition in the country,” he said.
“It was remarkable to sustain it all, running the way we did though. It was all so labour intensive.”
Horsham Fishing Competition has successfully catered for serious anglers as well as families eager to throw in a line.
Mr Dellar said the friendships he made during his time at the Apex club and running the fishing competition had left him with lifelong friends.
“We still have an old ‘Apexian’ night about once or twice a year. We all gather for a meal and enjoy ourselves. We all go back a long way,” he said.
He said the event’s social sensibilities still contributed to its success 50 years later.
“It has always been a big family event, as well as a serious fishing competition. Families find spots they can pull up camp along the riverbank. Camping is still free in many places along the river,” he said.
“A lot of people have fished the event every single year and only missed out when the competition was impacted by drought. And whether they caught anything or not – they still always had a really great time.”
Mr Dellar said while things were different in 2022 compared with the first event in 1972, some things never changed.
“Today the car as first prize tradition carries on, and still, the organisers are responsible for buying the car – it is not donated by sponsors,” he said.
“And the magnificent photographs of the morning sunrises as the competition starts.
“The morning of the competition, with the dew and steam rising off the river, with the ducks swimming past – it is just bliss. It makes you think about what all the rich people are doing when they could be here in a place like this.”
The Weekly Advertiser Horsham Fishing Competition is on Sunday. It will be the event’s 45th year.