BREAM SERIES presented by
Big bream beatdown on the Hawkesbury The mighty Hawkesbury River and its many tributaries make up one of, if not the, biggest arena the ABT Daiwa BREAM series travels to, and the scale of bream tends to match the grandeur of the venue. The weather made sure to throw a few curveballs for anglers at the 7th qualifying round sponsored by Maui Jim bringing a deluge of rain on the second day, just to make things more fun for the competitors! The Sydney-based anglers had a field day with Michael Colotouros taking first place with a 10/10 fish for 9.66kg, and not even a 200g late penalty on day one could hold him back. In second place was South Coast angler and
Colotouros is now reaping the rewards of his time on the water, building himself quite the resume on the ABT circuit. Admittedly, Michael isn’t a fan of pre-fishing and as such he hasn’t pre-fished any tournament for about six years or so. “I’m a big fan of not pre-fishing, I think it’s more skilful if you can go onto a venue on tournament day with no pre-fish and adapt to the conditions to catch fish. It also stops me stinging all my fish on pre-fish that I wouldn’t be able to catch in the tournament,” he explained as his reasoning for foregoing a pre-fish. Being a Sydney local, Michael spends most of his recreational time fishing the Hawkesbury, so he decided to rely on his usual milk run of
Liam Carruthers continues his quest to win an ABT qualifying event. His second place on the Hawkesbury produced a string of big bream like this. they have to be fished on a low,” Michael said about his decision to start at the oyster leases each morning. He did so with a 2.5” bloodworm coloured Daiwa Bait Junkie grub on a 1/16oz jighead and a stout 13 Fishing rod paired with a high gear ratio 3000 Daiwa Certate with heavy braid and 12lb leader. As the tide got higher towards lunchtime, the racks became unfishable, so he progressed downriver to fish edges, casting into the incoming tide. As the tide made its way up, Michael fished the same bloodworm Daiwa
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Bait Junkie grub but on a 1/28oz TT hidden weight jighead, pitching it hard into the exposed rocks and often watching fish swim over and eat the lure. And that’s exactly what happened with his 1.4kg kicker fish on day one. This was done with Daiwa TD zero rod paired with a Daiwa Revlry spooled with 4lb straight through fluorocarbon line.
Once the tide really got up onto the rocks he put the grubs down and picked up his Crab rod, a Duffrods Shell n’ Bones 1-5kg. Pitching the Crab up on top of the rocks and crawling it around and down the face of the big boulders. If you fished the event, fair chance you were probably overtaken in a 70mph blur of black and blue 225 Mercury ProXS/Phoenix 819 and, on a system as big as the Hawkesbury, Michael Colotouros uses every bit of that 4.6L V8. It also helped him secure an extra $250 as our 1st place Mercury Owner’s bonus and I dare say
We are pretty sure that John Glover’s 1.785kg bream is the biggest bream weighed in a NSW BREAM qualifier, eclipsing Jack Olmos’ 1.74kg from the Clarence. all-round legend Liam ‘Emu’ Carruthers, who was hot on his heels with a 10/10 fish limit for 9.295kg. In the non-boater division, a 1.785kg brute on day two helped John Glover secure victory with a 6/6 limit for 5.3kg and put him nearly a kilo clear of the rest of the field. COLOTOUROS CLAIMS THE WIN He has been coming through the ABT ranks since his teenage years and Michael
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spots upriver to get his limit each day. “The dead low tide in the morning was perfect for fishing the oyster racks up-river near Berowra because the rails aren’t actually visible on a high tide,
BOATER RESULTS Place 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 96
JULY 2022
Angler Michael Colotouros Liam Carruthers Mario Vukic Grant Oliver Jason Mayberry Tom Slater Mark Crompton Rodney O’Sullivan Brett Crowe Bernard Kong
Fish 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 8/10 8/10 9/10
This year, Michael Colotouros is putting in 150% instead of his standard 100% and it’s paying off. Full results at abt.org.au
Weight(kg) 9.660 9.295 7.935 7.770 7.680 7.465 7.345 6.810 6.790 6.460
Payout $3500 + $250 1st Merc bonus $1600 + $125 2nd Merc bonus $1000 + $75 3rd Merc bonus $800 $750 $700 $600 $500 no payout no payout
