Morgan doubles up on epic run to take BASS Open

Brisbane’s Steve Morgan won his last and only ABT BASS event 17 years ago. Over two days and over 320km of travel in his boat over two days from the Grafton start, he outdistanced the field to take out the Rapala BASS Australian Open in the Clarence River.

Both days he targeted fish in the Esk River, a Clarence River tributary flowing north from Iluka. He followed up his day 1 (5/5, 5.593kg) with the second highest limit on day 2 (5/5, 4.925kg) to stay ahead of a fast-finishing AOY leader, Mick Johnson by a 1.2kg margin.

For his efforts he pocketed $8,000 and a pair of 13 Fishing baitcast reels. Here’s how he did it.

about 80% of the river because I couldn’t catch a fish in it and also learned that it was possible to get in and out of there on a halftide. This meant that I knew I wasn’t going to get stuck. Probably wasn’t going to get stuck…”

“I’d never actually made the full run from Grafton to the fish, but I calculated that I should have enough fuel capacity to do it. Still, I took a little spare just in case,” he continued.

As it turned out, the spare wasn’t necessary as he burned 85L per day to make the 160km round trip – great economy for a V8 200hp Mercury on a 19’8” BassCat.

“I’d built my latest BassCat with all of this in mind. The Pantera Classic

“I always wanted to go and fish the Esk River in an ABT event. It always seemed like such a challenge to make the run, catch the fish and get back safely each day. This is why I took a day before the practice ban kicked in to learn the water a little and to be confident that I could navigate the ultra shallow mouth,” Morgan explained.

“On that day, I eliminated is a hull that sacrifices rough water ability for shallower draft and with a full lithium battery setup and hydraulic jackplate, I navigate water down to around 30cm deep,” Morgan said.

“On the first day I ran the sandbars on pad, but hit plenty of times, even with the jackplate and trim all of the way up, so day two, with a lower tide, I chose to crawl in

BOATER RESULTS at idle. It cost more time but I’m sure it saved my motor from any damage.”

Once in, he headed to the fishy water and started throwing a 1/4oz beetle-spin and a Tiemco Bass Tune Cicada topwater.

“On the practice day, the beetle spin was the only thing that they wanted to eat, so I committed it to it pretty heavily, especially after the

Full results at abt.org.au

6 Corey Goldie VIC 10/10 7.443kg $1,400

7 Bill Latimer NSW 10/10 7.324kg $1,250

8 Dane Pryce NSW 9/10 7.009kg $1,100

9 Tom Slater NSW 8/10 6.999kg $1,000 10 Brian Everingham NSW 10/10 6.895kg jumped on. After that the fish started coming quickly,” he explained.

Wanting to save some water for the Sunday, Morgan left an hour early with his 5.5kg limit and made it home without incident.

“I was nervous about actually being able to get into the river at all on the Sunday – the tide was lower and later, so there was no way I was going to try it at speed. We idled in over the shallowest banks and got across them before the water dropped out.”

“After that, I put the Shad Rap in the hand after a few casts with the topwater and didn’t put it down all day,” he explained.

“I learned that the squar-ish bill and the slight positive buoyancy of this bait makes it fantastic for working through heavy cover, and that’s what a lot of the fish came from. Maybe once a day I had to go in and retrieve it when it was properly stuck.”

Each day, Morgan also accessed a section of the river by jumping a log that had fallen across the river.

“My boat is set up for this – all of the transducers are tucked up beside the jackplate and there’s nothing to damage as you slide off the other side. And I’m glad I turned around early on day one – the fish were definitely more shy on the Sunday in the water I’d already fished.”

His key fish (44.5cm) came off a snag and buried deep in it. He went in and

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JOHNSON’S STREAK CONTINUES

The 2023 13 Fishing BASS Pro Series AOY leader, Mick Johnson, is on a tear – he has finished 1st, 2nd and 2nd in the three BASS events this year. He nearly made it two wins after a Sunday comeback that raised him from 21st place right up into the second spot.

Ultimately his 5/5, 3.022kg and 5/5, 6.292kg bags fell short by around 1.2kg, but he still pocketed $4,000 for his efforts.

Mick explained how his weekend went down.

“After a slow prefish when I only landed a couple of bass, I knew I was going to have to keep an open mind and learn throughout the tournament on what and where the bites were going to come from. I had a plan to catch a limit and then go try some different techniques. But it ended up taking us all session to scrape together a little over 3kg, throwing small crankbaits to timbered or rocky edges,” Mick said.

He finished the day sitting in 21st, around 3kg from the lead.

“Over a few beers, thinking about how much weight that we needed to catch up on, Mitchell Cone and I spoke the night before about the potential of better quality fish being up shallow. I made somewhat of a game plan for the following day and Mitchell tied on a soft plastic frog for me.”

Day two started well for Johnson, catching a good on 12lb, 131 Sufix braid and 12lb Sufix Invisiline FC leader. tried to untangle it at which point it untangled itself and swum up to be netted. sized bass from a rocky edge up in super shallow water. He then made the decision to put his game plan to work and see if it would pay off.

“I don’t claim to know much about tides, but as soon as the tide turned the fish turned off like a switch. Going from attacking the frog until they had it, to barely sipping at it. I continued to throw surface for the rest of the session with only a few weak bites and bycatch,” he continued.

His frog technique involved skipping the bait unto the nastiest, bushiest looking snag piles that he could find and slow rolling it out. If a bass showed interest, the next cast would be a slower, twitching retrieve.

“When things like that happen, you know it’s your time to win a BASS event,” he concluded.

Morgan threw the Plated Bone Craw coloured Shad Rap Elite 55 on a 13 Fishing MUSE BLACK 6’8” light action rod paired with a 13 Fishing Concept TX2 reel and 20lb braided line matched with a 12lb Daiwa J-Thread X-Link FC leader.

He caught 10-12 fish each day in the 4 hours of fishing time that he had left after travel.

As an added bonus, Rapala offered a 13 Fishing Concept C2 reel each day for the biggest bass caught on a Rapala lure. Morgan took both of these with a 41cm fish on Saturday and the 44.5cm fish on the Sunday.

“I headed up the Coldstream where I had several swirls and missed hook ups on surface during practice. By 10am I had 7 bites and boated 6 – all coming on the one frog Mr Cone tied on for me the night before.

It was a floating soft plastic frog that he rigged on a VMC #2 EWG hook and fished on a 13 Fishing 6’6” OMEN BLACK rod and Shimano Stella that he threw

ALWAYS A THREAT

With a couple of ABT Clarence River BASS Pro victories under his belt, Mike Nelson was always going to be a threat at the Open.

The two events he’s won, however, have been at locations a long way apart. Hence his pre-fish covered a lot of miles and wasn’t very productive.

“I only caught two, legal sized fish in practice,” Mike said, “And I burned about 80L of fuel doing it. I fished the Coldstream River, the main river up to Rogan’s Bridge and the South Arm.”

Ultimately, he settled down and fished the bland looking, grassy banks in the South Arm throughout the event and weighed two decent limits to take third place. He only saw one boat on the Saturday and no boats at all fishing the areas he was in on the Sunday.

He used two main baits to assemble his fish – a Rapala BX Brat in the white (hot dang) colour and a willowbladed beetle-spin with a 3” plastic paddle-tail.

Mike delivered the Brat on a 13 Fishing MUSE BLACK rod (7’, ML) and a Concept C2 reel while the beetle spin las rigged on an OMEL ML 7’ rod and a Daiwa Caldia 3000 sized reel.

“I didn’t have a fish on the board at 9am on the Saturday, so I was pretty happy to take home a decent cheque in the end,” he concluded.

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