BREAM SERIES presented by
Queensland raiders take Mallacoota trophies The two anglers who travelled furthest to fish the opening round of the 2022 Daiwa BREAM Series took home the trophies. The Maui Jim round was won by first time ABT BREAM competitor Tommy Wood on the non-boater side and veteran Steve Morgan in the boater division. It was like the 2021 BREAM Grand Final where two Victorians – Mario Vukic and Jesse Rotin – won on the Clarence River, but in reverse. Both used a topwater technique to put fish into the boat, albeit in different parts of the lake. To dovetail with the subsequent event, this round was run on the ABT Tournament Series app, with anglers measuring, photographing and releasing their bream at the point of capture. Overall, over 1,000 bream were logged between the competitors.
Two Queenslanders, Steve Morgan (L) and Tommy Wood (R), took top honours in the season-opening event of the Daiwa BREAM Series 2022, the Maui Jim Qualifier at Mallacoota. Steve Morgan’s win, self-admittedly, started very slowly. “I only landed one decent fish during practice on a pink grub, and that was sight fishing on a bright, sunny day, so I was a bit lost when it dawned overcast,” Morgan said, “I couldn’t see any fish with the clouds so I just went
From then on it was quality fishing, twitching a white O.S.P. Bent Minnow in 1-2ft of water and racking up the weight,” Steve said. He fished the topwater on a 6’8” Daiwa Infeet rod and MQ Caldia reel loaded with 6lb J-Braid and 7lb
Yamatoyo Chinu Harris leader. On the Sunday he swapped the outfit out to the 7’3” Infeet with a 3000 Revelry to gain a little extra casting distance. Paired with Stuart Walker on Sunday, the pair landed just under 30 bream that weighed more than 600g. Quality fishing. You can watch some of it in the highlights by scanning the QR code hereby. “It was all about a toned down retrieve. The black bream, in particular, like a bit of time to commit to taking the topwater bait, but they usually sip it down when given the opportunity. It was definitely a slower retrieve than I’d use further north,” he concluded. The win was his 10th in ABT BREAM Qualifiers. HODGES SLIPS TO SECOND PLACE Day 1: 5/5, 4.942kg Day 2: 5/5, 4.209kg Total: 10/10, 9.151kg After leading the event on day one with just under 5kg of Mallacoota yellowfin bream, perennial Victorian placegetter, Brad Hodges slipped to second place when fishing finished. Dropping just 450g behind the winning pace.
Scan the QR code to watch the Non- Boater Winner Interview
Morgan relied on big black and yellowfin cruising in the back of shallow bays in less than 2ft of water to secure the win. Lengths are converted to weights to create a live scoreboard, which was viewed thousands of times by spectators all weekend on the ABT website. It was the start of a fourevent tour that encompassed two BREAM events and two
BASS events in Victoria in which nearly $30,000 in cash and $20,000 in prizes were awarded. MORGAN RODE TOPWATER PATTERN Day 1: 5/5, 4.894kg Day 2: 5/5, 4.715kg Total: 10/10, 9.609kg
to the bank when I knew I was struggling and fished everything.” That realisation was at Fairhaven, and he immediately lost a good yellowfin on a Bent Minnow and broke another off on a stick minnow. “After finding those fish cruising shallow, I focussed on the Bent Minnow and just covered water,” he said. An hour later he had a limit and then he hit what was to be the winning spot around halfway through the session. “As the Fairhaven arm shallowed at the end, the shallow flats were loaded with a mixture of big yellowfin and black bream.
BOATER RESULTS Place 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 108
MARCH 2022
Angler Steve Morgan Brad Hodges Liam Carruthers Grant Oliver Jason Mayberry Byron Hill Peter Breukel Jarrod Healey Scott Towner Jesse Rotin
Fish 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10
It didn’t take Tommy Wood long to translate his barra skills into bream skills. He caught a string of cracking bream from the back of Brad Hodges’ boat.
Full results at abt.org.au
Weight(kg) 9.609 9.151 8.896 8.740 8.691 8.628 8.255 7.851 7.837 7.739
Payout $3,100 + $250 Mercury $1,500 + $500 Big Bream + $125 Mercury $1,000 + $75 Mercury $900 $800 $700 $600 $500 $500 -
