Tournaments

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.

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, 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

This year, Michael Colotouros is putting in 150% instead of his standard 100% and it’s paying off.

Place Angler

1 Michael Colotouros 2 Liam Carruthers 3 Mario Vukic 4 Grant Oliver 5 Jason Mayberry 6 Tom Slater 7 Mark Crompton 8 Rodney O’Sullivan 9 Brett Crowe 10 Bernard Kong

BOATER RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Fish Weight(kg) Payout

10/10 9.660 $3500 + $250 1st Merc bonus

10/10 9.295 $1600 + $125 2nd Merc bonus

10/10 7.935 $1000 + $75 3rd Merc bonus

10/10 7.770 $800

10/10 7.680 $750

10/10 7.465 $700

if it wasn’t for that motor, he might have copped a bit more than a 200g late penalty!

BANG’N EM ON THE BRIDGE 2015 BREAM Grand Final Champion, Liam ‘Emu’ Carruthers, reminded us all just how deadly he can be with a Cranka Crab in hand at the Hawkesbury, with almost a kilo average for his second-

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place finish.

In pre-fish, Liam checked out a lot of usual haunts in the Pittwater, Cowan Creek, the road bridges and various banks upriver with almost too much success, catching a number of fish around the magic 40cm fork length.

“I had a huge bag in pre-fish, so I was sweating that I’d stung all my fish for the weekend too early. Luckily, I didn’t, and I was able to catch good fish all weekend” he said.

Liam did most of his damage for the weekend on Michael knows which events to win around Sydney. Big fields and close to home are his speciality.

Grayson Fong knows how to win from the back of the boat but fell short by one place on the Hawkesbury.

headed for the bridge pylons.

For the first day, he found the fish were quite active on the pylons and honing in on a crankbait in the form of a Daiwa Spike 44 MR in matte prawn colour. The spikes are a deeper running crankbait that would get down to about 10ft deep where he could see the fish sitting on his Lowrance units.

the pylons of the Hawkesbury River Bridge at Moonee Moonee, as well as a bank up past the bridge on the low tide each morning.

At the start of each session, his upriver bank produced the makings of a decent bag with a Cranka Crab, however needing those kicker fish he

Proudly a member of the Cranka lures team, Liam opted for the natural presentation of a brown Cranka Crab on day two as the cold front pushed in and shut the fish down.

Liam was pushed off his pylons from day one by other boats as he went upriver to fish his bank first off. Making

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lemonade out of lemons however, he had no choice but to adapt and fish the deeper pylons in the middle of the river. He explained his crab technique by saying,

“The trick is to ‘lead’ the crab to get it to the right depth. What I mean by lead is you have to cast 3-4m past the bridge pylon up-current so that the lure is hitting the right depth the fish are in as the current brings it back under the pylon.”

Carruthers puts his trust in 3 identical Millerods Brawlers with 2500 sized Daiwa TD Sol reels spooled with 8lb J braid Grand and 6lb Sunline V-hard leader.

“The Brawlers are my absolute favourite all-round rod. They have a light tip but plenty of backbone to put the hurt on those fish if I need to. That’s why I’ve got three of them all set up identically,” he said of his rod selection.

GLOVER RUNS

AWAY WITH IT

John Glover of the non-boater division got to work from the back of the boat in a big way. On top of winning the non-boater division, he also weighed one of the heaviest yellowfin bream the ABT has seen for a long time to take out the $500 big bream prize from Buck N’ Bass.

As a non-boater you have to be versatile and John did that perfectly, changing how he fished each day to suit the locations and structure he was fishing.

To cover all his bases from crankbaits to crabs and plastics, he has a couple of identical Daiwa Infeet 702LRS outfits paired with 2000 sized Daiwa TD Sol’s, 6lb braided line and 6lb leader.

“I just find this combination works really well together so I just stick with them for my four rods, they’re all exactly the same” he said.

On day one he got most of his bites on a Prolure Clone Prawn, however with a new day comes a new boater and on Sunday it was all about the good ol’ heavy olive Cranka Crabs.

Fishing with Christian Wardini on Sunday, they were targeting the fish sitting deep out of the edges in about 30ft of water by casting in tight to the structure and working it out off the bank. The trick was to ‘jig’ the crab, giving it a few lifts or hops off the bottom before letting it sink again with most fish eating it on the drop.

Any day you hook a bream that you initially call as a mulloway is a good day, but when that fish turns out to be a 1.785kg monster netting you $500 cash, it’s an even better day. The dinosaur came when he was jigging his crab on day two and it knocked off a few trophy class fish from big bream specialist Rodney O’Sullivan and Michael Colotouros by a substantial margin to take home the Buck N’ Big bream prize.

Like all ABT winners, John gets instant qualification to the Daiwa BREAM Series Grand Final in Mallacoota later this year.

Place Angler

1 John Glover 2 Grayson Fong 3 James Croese 4 Alllan Lavell 5 Glenn Allen 6 John Parkinson 7 Taka Kawasaki 8 David Shanahan 9 Jesse Rotin 10 Joel McKenzie

NON- BOATER RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Fish Weight(kg) Payout

6/6 5.300 Daiwa prize pack + $500 Buck n’ Big bream

6/6 4.385 Daiwa prize pack

6/6 4.255 Daiwa prize pack

6/6 4.175 Maui Jim voucher

6/6 4/6 4/6 3.835 3.315 3.210 ProLure prize pack Atomic prize pack

The site of our second and final WA round, and the 6th qualifying round for 2022, took us to the Swan River in the states capital, Perth. The Sunline sponsored round got off to a good start and it was looking like Mitch Vane was going to take out back-to-back victories in WA if it wasn’t for a fastfinishing Pete Degroot on Sunday.

In a similar turn of events in the non-boater division, we nearly saw Stuey Walker (6/6 for 2.69kg) make back-to-back wins as well after a good Sunday bag, however it wasn’t enough to knock off two solid bags brought each day by David Bennett for a total of 6/6 fish for 2.72kg. weekend. Hitting his go-to snags, Degroot went to his confidence lure in the form of a River-2-Sea baby vibe in black and gold.

To fish a vibe with treble hooks around heavy structure requires some skill, along with some modification to make it more snag resistant. For this, Pete removes the front hook and changes the back treble to a very small size 16 owner treble.

Slow rolling his baby vibe through the snag, he was able to deflect it off the timber without having the front treble getting hung up, and if the rear treble did get snagged it was typically easy to get the lure back.

To get his lure in amongst the snags, Peter Peter Degroot is no stranger to the top spot in an ABT qualifier. His last win was on the Blackwood River in 2019.

Here is half of the Buck n’ Big Bream Prize. Christopher Allen tied with Joseph Gardner.

THE BABY

VIBE ASSASSIN

STRIKES AGAIN

Local angler, Peter Degroot, has seen some good results in years gone past when the ABT has come to town, and this year he got it done on the Swan River fishing his favourite baby vibe technique around the snags upriver.

He knew the lower reaches of the river were quite clear and this solidified his decision to fish upriver in the dirtier water for the whole uses an Atomic Arrowz rod paired with a 2500 size Shimano Stradic Ci4 spooled up with 14lb Sunline braid and 6lb Sunline leader. “A couple of fish really had me stitched up in the timber but fortunately I was able to trust my gear and ease them out,” he said.

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On day two, Pete ventured slightly further upriver in search of where he thought the fish were that he didn’t find on day one, and that’s where his solid 5/5 fish for 2.730kg day two bag came from! This launched him from second place into first over day one leader Mitch Vane. Pete’s reliable little 30hp Mercury outboard earned him enough money in Mercury owners’ bonus to probably fill it up for the next 12 months as he walked away with the

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$250 1st place owners bonus as well. MITCH VANE MAKES IT ANOTHER

PODIUM FINISH

Backing up from his win in Mandurah, Mitch Vane had a good crack at taking out back-toback wins when he was leading after day one and he came so close to being a two-time ABT champion in two events.

A bit of that local knowledge came in handy again for Mitch as he knew that his best shot was to head upriver to get his fish. This saw him focus his time

David Bennett fell one fish short of a limit but still managed to relegate Stuart Walker to second place. Not bad for his first ABT event.

Place Angler

1 Pete Degroot 2 Mitch Vane 3 Jarrad Stevens 4 Alex Greisdorf 5 Greg Coooper 6 Joseph Gardiner 7 Kim Mcintyre 8 Paul Siemaszko 9 Graeme Kovacevich 10 Kris Hickson

BOATER RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Fish Weight(kg) Payout

8/10 4.87 $1750 + $250 1st Merc bonus

8/10 4.16 $700 + $125 2nd Merc bonus

7/10 3.66

8/10 8/10 3.46 2.97 $75 3rd Merc bonus

4/10 2.07

fishing snags on edges past the bridge up around the Fish Market Reserve area of the Swan River.

Unlike the deep drop offs he was fishing at Mandurah, this bite was quite a bit shallower with Mitch targeting snags in 1.2-2m of water. Boat positioning played a big role in how he fished these snags too. By

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keeping the boat in shallow and casting parallel with the bank along the snags, he was able to get his soft plastic to track along bank and keep it in the strike zone without dragging it out to deep, noting that the lure had to be hard to the structure to get bites.

The soft plastic in mention was a Fatboy Swim in green pumpkinseed Mitch Vane nearly made it two from two with a solid second place.

Win a division in the Daiwa BREAM Series and you’ll be taking home lots of quality Daiwa product. Joseph Gardner was the other half of the Buck n’ Big Bream duo. This fish earned him $250.

Christopher and Joseph didn’t want to ‘rock, paper, scissors’ for the $500 so they split it 50/50. the pair travelled upriver where he fished the same green pumpkin coloured Fatboy Swim as his boater, rigged on a 1/16oz Razor Edge jighead. The technique was to keep the lure moving, not letting it hit the bottom and stir up a reaction bite on the isolated structure they were fishing in about 2m of water.

“I actually had my bag by 9am and Mitch had none, so he was chasing me,” he said in his winner’s interview, ribbing his day one boater!

Day two with Peter Degroot, and David was pleased to know they were fishing upriver again. He had to make some small adjustments to the way

with Mitch taking home the $125 2nd place Mercury owners’ bonus for the event. Mitch would like to say a big thanks to ABT for putting the effort in to getting the WA anglers involved. His words

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with the chocolates at Perth after a 3rd place finish in the Mandurah round. Not a bad average to start the ABT career off!

Dave was fishing with Mitch Vane on day one and

colour from local lure manufacturer Razor Edge lures, rigged on a 1/16oz TT Jighead rolled tight around the structure. This was also accompanied by a ZMan Slim SwimZ in motor oil to account for a few fish each day. Again, Mitch used his 6’6” Strudwick and 2500 Certate SW combo to get a nice accurate cast and still be sensitive enough to feel even the subtle bites.

Running a Mercury outboard also got him paid, of encouragement to any West Coast anglers thinking about taking the leap: “I know it may seem pretty daunting, especially because a lot of guys over here are used to the team format, but trust me it’s a lot of fun and there is every chance of taking home a good pay cheque. Just give it a go!”

SECOND TIMES A CHARM FOR BENNETT

Fishing in his second ever event as a non-boater, Dave Bennett came away he fished as he was fishing deeper structure than day one. After trying to go heavier with his jighead and getting snagged, he stuck with his original lure and jighead combo and slowed his fishing down to suit the depth.

For the entirety of the event David relied on one outfit, which was a 7’1” Yamaga Blanks from Japan, paired with a 1000 size Daiwa Luvias Airity, Varivas Seabass maxpower braid and 4lb J thread FC leader.

“It’s a very light combo but it matches my fishing style, I was deep in the sticks with Pete today and I kept pulling them out on 4lb no worries,” he said after day two.

Place Angler

1 David Bennett 2 Stuart Walker 3 Christopher allen 4 Brendan Knowles 5 Andrew Lovell 6 Ben Hough 7 Jenny Gardner 8 Shardi Biahgi 9 Andy Mitchell 10 Craig Doherty

NON- BOATER RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Fish Weight(kg) Payout

5/6 6/6 3/6 4/6 3/6 2/6 2/6 2/6 1/6 0/6 2.72 2.69 2.19 2.09 1.36 0.95 0.81 0.74 0.30 0.00 Bait Junkie prize pack Bait Junkie prize pack Bait Junkie prize pack + $500 Big bream Samaki prize pack Prolure prize pack Atomic prize pack RAPALA prize pack Keitech prize pack Toadfish prize pack

Crabs, snags and black bream bags

The fifth stop of the 2022 Daiwa BREAM series also saw the start of the Western Australia double header with the first event at Mandurah, sponsored by ZMan. A neat field of 14 anglers took the water in what was a tough event for some, however local chippie Mitch Vane had the fish dialled in on Cranka Crabs and claimed victory with a 10/10 limit for 6.16kg.

He’s about as far from home and his usual East Coast stomping grounds as he can get, however legend of ABT Kris Hickson was back to his usual tricks, even if he is technically on holidays! He took second place on the podium with a 10/10 limit for 5.38kg. Who is Mitch Vane? The national breamin’ community now knows. He dominated at Mandurah and backed it up on the Swan River a few days later during ABT’s WA Tour.

Didier Blanquart caught the Buck n’ Big Bream for the event – the only fish that surpassed the 1kg mark.

Meanwhile in the non-boater division, the unstoppable Stuey Walker racked up his 11th win from the back of the boat with 5/6 fish for 2.79kg, further cementing his status as ‘the GOAT from the back of the boat’.

VICTORY FOR VANE

Taree ex-pat turned WA local Mitch Vane made the most of the trailering option to head upriver and launch at Murray Bend where he

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had found fish during his pre-fish in the weeks prior.

Being a local, Mitch has the luxury of being able to fish here often and has a good understanding of how frequently the fish in this system can turn off and on. It’s certainly a mental advantage when you know full well just how tough the fishing has been over the past few months.

Heading about a kilometre from the ramp, Vane targeted a series of submerged snags on a deep drop off with some special characteristics.

“There was a drop off down to about 4m and I was looking for laydowns that had fallen over far enough from the bank to extend into the drop off, and that’s where the fish were sitting,” said

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Vane about the type of cover he was targeting.

Once he identified the snags that were holding fish, he would throw a light Cranka Crab in olive colour down the face of it without working it with the rod tip, just letting it sink down to where the fish were for a natural presentation. Due to the lack of current he was able to fish a light crab over the more popular heavy model and still effectively fish this water depth, but with a bit more Finesse.

To present his lure, Mitch went old school and used a 6’6” 2-4 kg Strudwick rod he bought off a mate for $80 – an investment that just paid for itself a few times over! He paired it with a 2500 Daiwa Certate SW, 8lb Pandora braid and a generous length of 6lb Sunline FC rock leader.

With only five bites on day one and six bites on day two, he had to make sure everything stuck, and this incredibly light combo kept the hooks in those fish, even if it did cost him a few Crabs to the snags. Remember, you’ve got to risk it to get the biscuit!

Thanks to Mercury, Mitch also took home the first place Mercury owners’ bonus of $250 to bring his total winnings for the weekend to almost $2,000 in cash.

DIFFERENT STATE, SAME RISKY

The man needs no introduction and, even though he is three states away from home, Kris ‘Captain Risky’ Hickson is still as deadly as ever.

In pre-fishing up the

The G.O.A.T from the back of the boat added another trophy to his collection at Mandurah.

Place Angler

1 Mitch Vane 2 Kris Hickson 3 Ben Pountney 4 Peter Degroot 5 Joseph Gardner 6 Alex Greisdorf 7 Patrick Gill 8 Jarrad Stevens 9 Didier Blanquart 10 Rene Van Door

BOATER RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Fish Weight(kg) Payout

10/10 6.16 $1700 + $250 1st Merc bonus

10/10 5.38 $700

6/10 4.19

6/10 6/10 4/10 2/10 3.00 2.66 1.73 1.46 $125 2nd Merc bonus

$75 3rd Merc bonus

Murray, he was unable to find anything worth noting so was resigned to fishing the canals on the south side of the river that he’d hit a few weeks earlier, at least for the first day.

A slow start on day one saw him with one fish on an Ecogear Aqua Bream Prawn by about 9:30am before he and non-boater Stuey Walker

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hit a patch of three docks that gave each of them a few fish and a few missed opportunities.

After a lull in the bites, Hickson moved to another part of the canals where they saw two giant fish that they were unable to tempt, however they were able to produce four more fish from just one dock and fill their bags. Mitch concentrated his efforts on the top part of the Murray River to assemble his bags.

Buck n’ Bass proudly sponsor the Big Fish award at every ABT qualifier across the Country. Kris Hickson took a break from his West Aussie touring to participate in the WA Tour and was rewarded with a second place at Mandurah.

We are not sure how Stuart Walker got this ABT trophy home. They weigh several kilos and would definitely attract excess baggage charges! Hickson on day one might have sounded like a dream pairing, however as Walker pointed out it can be very hard to fish behind someone that isn’t leaving many fish behind however with a little thinking outside the box, he was able to get his three bites on day one.

From the Gold Coast to Gippsland Lakes, the Derwent to Mandurah and every venue in between, he’s notorious for his ability with a ZMan Grub. However, after only receiving short strikes on the grubs and other minnow style soft plastics in pre-fish he decided to downsize to a 2” Keitech Easy shiner rigged on a 1/20 TT Headlocks jighead.

“I got a lot of short strikes on pre-fish so I went

Apart from the first fish each session, all Kris’ fish for the weekend fell on a 2.5” Daiwa Bait Junkie Grub in motor oil as well as a new prototype Bait Junkie, all rigged on a 1/28 jighead

With nothing else to fall back on for day two, Risky headed back to the canals and hit a dock he’d seen a pack of fish on the day before, and again he was able to get the ball rolling with an Aqua.

With no company in the area, he decided to replicate the run from the day before but a lot slower and more methodical, hitting areas he’d left alone the day before. Only four more fish came from the docks that he’d fished on day one before the bite went dead, aside from sighting a few more schools of really big fish that again, he couldn’t tempt. and fished super slow.

The key to him catching fish was his pinpoint accuracy, and Daiwa have produced the perfect rods in their Infeet range. The first of which is a rod Kris had a big hand in designing, the 6’4” 1-4kg Infeet Z, which is perfect for short, accurate casting around tight structure.

Meanwhile, its bigger brother the 6’8” 1-4kg Infeet Z is essentially the same rod just with more length for a bit more leverage on those big fish and better casting distance.

Both set ups were paired with Daiwa Caldia LT reels,

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6lb J Braid Grand and 6lb J Thread leader.

UNSTOPPABLE

STUEY WALKER

Stuey Walker has been anointed the title of ‘The GOAT From The Back Of The Boat’ by his peers and boy, hasn’t he earned it! In what is becoming an extensive resume, Stuey Walker makes this his second win in WA, his 11th win from the back of the boat and he is also well on his way to win his 7th consecutive BREAM Non-Boater AOY trophy as well. Likely a record that will stand unbeaten for many years to come!

Fishing with Kris

for a smaller profile in the Keitech,” Walker said of his bait choice in his winner’s interview with Steve Morgan.

Twitching and slow rolling his lure around the pontoons in the canal systems with Kris, he was able to fill a limit on day one before shifting upriver for day two with Paul Siemaszko where the fishing became a lot more structure-based around laydown timber.

His now famous Daiwa Silver wolf rods were given a workout once more, paired with a Daiwa Luvias Airity and 6lb Daiwa EVO 8 braid – a combination of Daiwa Gear that Stuey trusts in every corner of the country for all his breaming.

NON- BOATER RESULTS

Full results at abt.org.au

Place Angler Fish Weight(kg) Payout

1 Stuey Walker 2 Jenny Gardner 3 David Bennett 5/6 4/6 3/6

4 Michael Sammut 2/6

5 Craig Doherty

2/6 6 Jason McGuinness 1/6 2.79 2.55 1.78 1.07 0.89 0.62 Daiwa prize pack Daiwa prize pack Daiwa prize pack Samaki prize pack Atomic prize pack

East Coast Bream Series Rd 3

The third round of the East Coast Bream Series, proudly sponsored by Tackle Addiction, was held at St Georges Basin on 15 May.

The day started with overcast conditions without a breath of wind, with 45 teams lined up for the start. The day remained overcast with occasional rain but very little breeze, and most teams had to change the method of fishing to meet the conditions.

In first place was Team Stealth Blades, Peter Cook and Marlee Percy, who took home a $2,500 cheque for their 5/5 fish weighing 4.42kg. Peter explains how their tournament unfolded:

“Our plan for the day was to fish the western side of St George’s Basin, targeting the edges of cockle beds with blades in depths from 2-3m. With very little wind in the morning, we zig-zagged the area on the electric picking up a legal fish every 15 minutes or so, getting our bag a little bit after 8am, with our first upgrade for the day not too long after.

“Just after 9am, my partner Marlee hooked onto what ended up being the tournament’s Big Bream of the day and a personal best for her that went 42cm and 1.24kg. With a couple of screaming runs and a nice net shot by myself, the big bream was in the live well.

“For the next hour or so we slowly upgraded the smaller fish in our bag and I landed the second biggest of the day that might have nudged 1kg. By this time, we had plenty of company with a few boats pulling in on us but we stuck around for another hour, landed a couple of upgrades, then we moved to the eastern side of the system.

“For the rest of the day, we caught a heap of smaller fish, upgraded once more then made a slow short trip back to the weigh in thinking we might have managed a place but we still weren’t sure.

“Back at the beach we weighed in early then nervously waited to see how we went and to our surprise we were lucky enough to take the win!

“The lures that we caught all our fish on that day were Stealth Blades. Something that I designed, manufacture and hand paint myself. Marlee and I both fished on very light and long leaders. It was great to catch up with all the South Coast guys (it’s been a while) and to meet many more people. Thank you to the club and everyone involved on the day.”

In second place was Team Stealth and Sherman, Craig Sudden and Mick Snell, who got 5/5 fish for 4.28kg, and a $1,000 cheque.

Knowing there was no wind forecast, the pair we knew the importance of targeting big fish early. They usually fish shallow cranks, however they decided to fish deep cranks on weed edges as there was little wind. The decision paid off and they had five fish in the boat by 8.15am. Craig said,

“We continued deep cranking different edges all day and made a number of upgrades before lunch and lost a few lures to some rather large flathead. We found the last two hours tough and struggled to land any decent size bream as the Basin had completely glassed off.”

In third place was Team Brimn, Grant Kime and Stuart Walker, who banked $700 for their 5/5 bag for 4.19kg.

Grant said, “We fished ZMan Grubs with a ‘zombie twitch’. Stuart learnt this method by carefully observing Steve Nedeski’s technique. This worked well in the right hands and we were able to put together a nice bag of fat and healthy Basin bream”.

In fourth place was Team Basin Breamin, Peter and Rudi Henkel, who got 5/5 fish for 4.13kg, and a $300 cheques. Peter said,

“We started the day on the weed beds at the start line in 4m of water and caught 10 fish by 10am. Then we moved to the western side of the lake and upgraded several times. We used a range of lures, but most were caught on Peter Cook vibes and Super Oil Hurricane Sorat 75.

RESULTS

www.wsbb.com.au

Place Team

1 Stealth Blades 2 Stealth’n’Sherman 3 Brimn

Anglers Fish Weight(kg)

Peter Cook, Marlee Percy

5/5 4.42 Craig Snudden, Mick Snell 5/5 4.28 Grant Kime, Stuart Walker 5/5 4.19 4 Basin Breamin Peter Henkel, Rudi Henkel 5/5 4.13 5 Complete Anglern/Gregory Hills Dane Tomaszewski, Daniel Tribbia 5/5 4.07 6 Shimano/Garmin Jason Mayberry, Terry Permenter 5/5 3.99 7 Zman Okuma/ Tosland Building Gary Brown, David Tosland 5/5 3.90 8 Edgey Bites Adam Hughes, Matt Green 5/5 3.88 9 Cranka/Miller Rods/Lowerance/Mako Liam Curruthem 5/5 3.80 10 Shimano/Prolure Wal Balzon, Callon Young 5/5 3.61 11 Team Primed Simon Moore, Shane De La Marr 5/5 3.58 12 Day Breamins Rashid Ammoun, Rabih Itani, 5/5 3.56 13 Onagain Darren McBride, Neil Kelly 5/5 3.54 For a complete listing of the round go to www.wsbb.com.au First Place: Stealth Blades Peter Cook and Marlee Percy

Second Place: Stealth’n’Sherman Craig Snudden and Mick Snell

Third: Brimn Grant Kime and Stuart Walker

Fouth: Basin Breamin Peter Henkel and Rudi Henkel

“I am happy to extend a big thanks all WSBB officials and sponsor Tackle Addiction for running a well organised and professional event. I have had great success in the past fishing this event with my son but this time I fished with my father. I am so excited because it was the first time my farther has caught fish on lures. Not bad for a 76-year-old! He said he knew where the fish were and that is why we fished this event, and he was right”. SPONSOR

A huge thanks to Steve Pourniotis from Tackle Addiction for picking up sponsorship for this event. Places five to 13 all picked up a great parcel of their products. It is his first venture into sponsoring an event and we hope this is the start of a long-term partnership.

Full results can be found on website www.wsbb.com. au. Congratulations to all the prize winners and we look forward to the rest of the year. – Alan Newton, WSBB