COPETON Dam was voted into the Fishing Hall of Fame by Australian anglers and the national fishing industry in general at the awards dinner for the Australian Lure Fly and Outdoors Expo held at the Exhibition Centre, Ipswich Showgrounds from 6.30pm on Saturday July 18.
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The Expo was held at Ipswich and ran from on July 16-17, and the induction sees Copeton recognised as one of Australia’s premier fishing locations. Inverell lure maker Jason Cox attended the expo where he took out the Bladed Lure of the Year award.
“I make spinner baits as well as some custom timbers and my business doubled overnight. I’ve been inundated with calls and all the local shops here helped me out,” he said.
Cox said the recognition for Copeton was a massive thing for the dam and everything surrounding it. He said no-one knew that Copeton was about to win on the night.
It just confirms something that everybody knows; all of Australia has heard of Copeton, our fishery is next to none.
- Jason Cox
“They ask people of the lure industry who and why you would like people voted in to the Hall of Fame, and you’ve got to be nominated by ‘x amount’ of people, and it’s got to be a fairly unanimous thing,” he said.
“At the awards dinner I was from Inverell, so I put my hand up and said I would be happy to go down and hand the award over to Dave Allen because I have lures down in their shop.
“I think it’s fantastic, absolutely fantastic. It just confirms something that everybody knows; all of Australia has heard of Copeton, our fishery is next to none,” Cox said.
“It says something about the way we do things here in Inverell. We run things right, we care about our stocking, we have so many programs in place to aid the fishing industry as well as bring people into town.”