BREAM AUSTRALIAN OPEN presented by
BREAM AUSTRALIAN OPEN
Brisbane’s Steve Morgan updated the history books at the recent Daiwa BREAM Open by being the first angler to take home the Greg Lee Memorial trophy three times. It’s awarded to the winner of the 3-day event on Sydney Harbour that features a boater-only format. In doing so, he became the first angler to won both a BASS and BREAM Open and did so in the same year - something ABT doesn’t think it will see happen
Morgan completes rare Open double the tougher events and on arenas where the fish get hard to catch, when there are changes in the season or the weather. Sydney Harbour definitely got harder to fish with the cold snap that happened over the week of the event.” Expecting water temperatures around 20°C , Steve was greeted with colder water in the mid to high teens on practice day, which called for a change in his game plan. “The last time I won the BREAM Open was in May 2017, and it was a full-on Bent Minnow bite that got me over the line,” he said. “This May was nothing like that. They wouldn’t commit to a topwater in practice.” Because of this, Steve
Fish like these make the difference on Sydney Harbour. Although not landing a bream over a kilogram, Morgan’s consistency over three days proved the key while the bream were in transition between their summer and winter patterns. Scan the QR code to watch Steve Morgan’s Day 2 Highlights
many times in the future. These are the bags that were weighed each day at the Drummoyne Sailing Club event base, which landed him 810g heavier than his closest competitor. Day 1: 5/5, 3.515kg Day 2: 5/5, 3.895kg Day 3: 5/5, 3.505kg Total: 15/15, 10.915kg “I actually hadn’t been having a very good [tournament] year to date,” Steve said. “I was sitting well down in the AOY races in both BREAM and BASS, but it seems that a series of decent decisions have turned this around. “I tend to do well in 110 JUNE 2023
went looking for deeper fish, and refined the depths the fish were holding at to the 10-20ft mark. “My Garmin LiveScope was a big help and let me dial on very quickly to the range the fish were comfortable suspending in,” he explained. “I ran the LVS 34 transducer Place
in Forward mode attached to the electric motor, and used the live sonar to see where bream were sitting under boats or deeper docks. After that it was a matter of deducing what they best wanted to eat.” Ultimately, the majority of his fish came on the Outback Breamer Baits Muss in both light and heavy iterations, depending on the depth of the water. If Steve was fishing a dock in 10ft, the Light Muss was the bait of choice, and the bream liked the slower sink speed. Scan the QR code to watch Steve Morgan’s Day 1 Highlights
On deeper boats (up to 20ft) where the fish were lower in the water column, the Heavy Muss came into its own. “If you saw a patch of 10 or 20 bream suspending off the bottom under a moored boat, they’d eat whatever you sunk down to them,” Steve said. “Fish would race up off the bottom when they saw the bait, so it made sense to use a faster sinking lure.” He mainly fished the Muss on a Daiwa Infeet 7’8” ‘Crab Rod’, with a 2500 Caldia MQ reel spooled with 3lb Daiwa J-Thread fluorocarbon straight through to the lure. “I reckon the straightthrough FC allows the lure to sink more naturally than any braid/leader combination,” Steve said. “In the clear water it was important to cast accurately and then lay the line down on the water in the wind to ensure as vertical a sink as possible.” He said that most bream would eat the lure on the drop, but if there were multiple fish following it down and not committing, a quick rip or a slow roll would sometimes trigger an aggressive response and a bite. “I can confidently say this, because I was blown away (and so was a majority of the livestream audience) with how clearly you
Angler
BOATER RESULTS
Queensland’s Steve Morgan became the first angler to have their name etched on the Greg Lee Memorial Trophy three times. His 2023 victory added to his 2010 and 2017 titles. could see the bream on the LiveScope,” he said. “I’d only used it as a structurefinding tool for bream in Perspective mode in the past, but this is a whole new world. I confirmed plenty of theories and learned more in four days about bream behaviour that I would in a year of fishing ‘blind’.” Indeed, it seems as though forward-facing live sonar has come of age in the BREAM ranks, and we
look forward to how anglers will employ the Garmin and Humminbird transducers in future events. “It’s interesting to note that I didn’t land a single kiloclass fish in the three days of the Open,” Steve said. “It was all about consistency, and I was aiming for that 3.5kg average per day which will always keep you up there when the Harbour is fishing tough. When I won the Open in 2017, my total
weight was 10.96kg. This year it was 10.915kg. That’s only 3g per fish difference.” All of his bream came from Middle Harbour, and he managed his spots to ensure that there were fish left for the final day. “There were more boats on the final day than I’d seen all event, but they were a blessing in disguise,” Steve said. “They were fishing mainly banks I’d hit earlier in the week, and I was forced
Tom Slater (2nd) and Kris Hickson (3rd) made it a Daiwa clean-sweep at the Daiwa BREAM Australian Open. Sponsor karma is a thing. Full results at abt.org.au
Fish
Weight(kg)
Payout
1
Steve Morgan
15/15
10.915kg
$6,000
2
Tom Slater
15/15
10.105kg
$3,500
3
Kris Hickson
15/15
9.885kg
$2,500
4
Mario Vukic
15/15
9.720kg
$2,000
5
Daniel Bonaccorso
15/15
9.235kg
$1,500
6
Jamie McKeown
13/15
9.185kg
$1,000
7
Ahmad Mahfoud
15/15
8.650kg
Daiwa Exist + Infeet SK Rod
8
Liam Carruthers
14/15
8.450kg
Daiwa Revelry + Infeet SK rod
9
Jesse Rotin
15/15
8.400kg
Daiwa TD Sol + Infeet SK rod
10
Frank Carabetta
15/15
to explore new country. This is where the biggest three fish in my final day bag came from.” The Greg Lee Memorial trophy was last seen headed to Brisbane. SLATER FALLS SLIGHTLY SHORT Daiwa’s Tom Slater has always been at the pointy end in the BREAM Australian Open, finishing in the top five in three of the last four iterations of this event. He has developed a milk run and a pattern which seems to always put a decent
