Trade against trade, company against company, mate against mate. We now know who’s the best in the trades at what truly matters: catching fish.

The second-ever Great Tradie Fish Off saw over 500 NZ tradies hitting the briny from the 2-11th of March in the pursuit of moochers. This year, anglers could target snapper, kingfish, kahawai, and blue cod – meaning tradies from around the country had a great chance of landing a winning fish.

It may have been a free-to-enter competition, but that didn’t mean our generous sponsors skimped on the prizes. ColorCote, Catch and Offsite’s key sponsor Rheem joined the party, making the total prize pool over well over $10,000. Every prize included a custom competition clothing item from Chums too.

The Great Tradie Fish Off is a measure-only competition, allowing anglers to decide whether they keep fish to feed their friends and whānau, or release them to swim another day. For the duration of the comp, competitors could watch all three live leaderboards to keep up to date with how individuals, companies, and trades were tracking. To make things interesting, the leaderboards were turned off before the live-streamed prizegiving!

The weather turned it on for this year’s Great Tradie Fish Off, and some cracking catches were submitted throughout the competition dates. The winning snapper of 85cm caught by Mark Beauchamp was a particularly impressive fish – no doubt well over the magical 20lb mark in ‘old fashioned’ terms! Even the Average Snapper was a decent-sized fish at 52cm in length.

Congratulations to Bungalow Project Management, who took out the illustrious company trophy for the winning company (we hope it has been filled with a few celebratory pints by now).

Finally, this year’s Trade Leaderboard was topped by the Builders, who beat away some stiff competition from the Other Guys, with the Electricians and Automotive behind, while the Plumbers ‘won’ the wooden spoon!

Thanks to those who entered the Great Tradie Fish Off 2023, and we look forward to seeing you at next year’s Great Tradie Fish Off!