Her entrant number was plucked from the barrel to claim the biggest prize of the Edward Kolety Fishing Challenge weekend.
After a few hugs for the announcers and event organisers, Rachel climbed into her brand new AnglaPro STL394 aluminium boat with a Yamaha 25hp motor and Precision boat trailer.
But it was not before announcing to the crowd amassed for presentations that she had participated in every Deniliquin fishing competition since 1996 and only ever won a fishing rod before.
“I have never won anything like this before,” she later told the Pastoral Times.
“Tony (Rachel’s husband) and I have entered every fishing comp since the first of the former Deniliquin Fishing Classics, and before now the best prize I got was a rod for the longest yellowbelly one year.”
The boat prize was one of two provided by Deniliquin Yamaha for the weekend’s competition.
The other - an AnglaPro 354 boat with Yamaha 15hp electric start motor, trailer and safety pack, valued at $13,850 - was the prize for the major raffle won by Cam Deegan.
Deniliquin Yamaha also provided a Yamaha YFZ50 49cc kids' automatic quad bike valued at $3950 for the raffle’s second prize, won by Mark O’Neil.
Neither of the raffle prize winners were there to collect their prizes in person.
Smiling from ear-to-ear, Rachel said winning the boat was an brilliant way to wrap up a fantastic weekend.
Fishing as a family with husband Tony and their children Harvey and Ned, they were among a capacity crowd of 500 anglers taking part in the competition.
Even as it looked like she would finish the weekend without a catch or a prize, Rachel said it didn’t matter.
But then she snagged the biggest catch of the weekend.
“I didn’t catch any fish, but I’ve just had the best weekend with family,” Rachel said.
“That’s one thing we love about these events, that they are family-friendly.
“Harvey didn’t catch anything either, but Tony and Ned managed to catch some fish.”
A running joke among friends and family who rushed to congratulate Rachel on her win was whether the family had enough boats already.
Rachel admitted they had only just bought a new boat for their sons, and had two others and a barge at home they used as often as they could.
She joked that this new boat meant every member of the family now had a fishing boat of their own.
Rachel’s new boat could have been won by any entrant of the Fishing Challenge, which was drawn as a lucky entry.
The only rule was you had to be there to claim the prize, and Rachel’s entry number was the first number drawn on Sunday.
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