Gordon said she was ready right from the morning for a big day of fishing.

“It’s amazing and a dream come true to win the competition,” she said.

“I was a taskmaster this morning and made everyone get up nice and early. I wanted to have a cup of tea in my hand when I had the fishing rod in the water in the morning. It was a lovely surprise just after 9am with that fantastic fish.

“I brought it in on my ‘pinkanator’, which is what we call my pink rod. It was on a yabby, which are always pretty popular down here.”

Gordon has been coming to the Horsham Fishing Competition for more than 10 years. 

“I’ve been coming for 13 or 14 years now – it’s a great competition and a fantastic place,” she said.

“We come for a couple nights and bring the family. It’s become a bit of a tradition and is almost as exciting as Christmas for us and we just love supporting regional towns.”

With a choice of prizes, Gordon chose to claim the car, much to her husband Leigh’s disappointment.

“My husband wanted the boat so he might go home a bit disappointed,” she said.

It was a great day for female anglers, with the top four senior prizes all going to women. 

Laura Beer came in second with a yellowbelly weighing in at 1,400 grams with Margaret Ellis coming in third with a yellowbelly that weighed 1,281 grams. 

“It was great to see the female anglers coming out on top,” Gordon said. 

Horsham Fishing Competition committee president Adele Rohde said the whole day went extremely well.

“It was really good and we had an amazing day, we couldn’t really have asked for a better outcome,” she said. 

“We really want the people that come to have an amazing time. Horsham put on a show this weekend with the car show on Sunday, the movie night and greyhounds on Saturday night – you really couldn’t have asked for any better.”