at Sydney BREAM event

bag together – he has just been lacking that big kicker fish to get him over the line. Here were his 3-day results.

Day 1: 5/5, 3.385kg

Day 2: 5/5, 3.590kg

Day 3: 5/5, 3.130kg

Total: 15/15, 10.105kg

“Every day I started by fishing a different wash in the lower section of the crankbait in a variety of colours (mainly sunnygill, suji and moebi) on a Daiwa Infeet EX 722LRS rod coupled with an Exist 2500 reel and straight through 5lb J Thread Finesse.

He also caught fish on the deeper version of Daiwa’s Rolling Crank.

Each day for the first two days, Tom landed a kilo-class

either fill his limit - or go close to it - on that initial period on the top of the tide. After that, he’d work his way back from Manly towards the CBD, fishing a variety

Scan the QR code to watch the final day weigh-in of jetties, boats and docks that he’d manage, so that he wasn’t fishing the same structures every day.

“Every day was a little different. On Day 1, the structure fish were plentiful, but smaller. On the second day I caught several upgrades of the same types of cover.

Tom finished Day 1 in

Day three started slower for Slater, with only four fish in the limit by the end of his wash run. The balance of his limit and several upgrades came from Berrys Bay, upstream of the Harbour Bridge.

“I checked the estimated scoreboard at 9:30am and saw that I still had plenty of work to do, but those bigger bites just didn’t happen for me,” he concluded.

Nearly all of Morgan’s bream fell to a sinking mussel lure.

Harbour,” he said. “Mainly it was ferry wash and not ocean swell which gave the fish the white water they needed to feed up shallow. I went through a lot of Daiwa Spike EXDR 44s over the week, but they got me the bites I needed through the rock and kelp patches.”

Tom fished the Daiwa fish off a section of rock on the morning milk run, which substantially helped his bag.

Every day, he would

Scan the QR code to watch Steve Morgan’s final day Highlights

5th place, but improved into a solid second after Day 2.

Tom’s structure fishing rig was a Daiwa BaitJunkie Risky Critter in Bloodworm rigged on a BaitJunkie 1/30oz 1/0 light wire jighead, and fished with 6lb J Braid and 6lb J Thread X Link leader on an Infeet Z 681LFS rod and Revelry 2500S reel.

Taree’s Kris Hickson is another angler always hov ering at the pointy end of most BREAM events, and his overall adaptability took him to within a couple of upgrades of a second BREAM Open title. Here are his final numbers.

Day 1: 5/5, 3.420kg

Day 2: 5/5, 3.415kg

Day 3: 5/5, 3.050kg

Total: 15/15, 9.885kg

“I took my typical run-and-gun approach for this Open, and tried hard not to have to fish the same areas twice,” Kris said. “In previous opens where it’s been three days all on Sydney Harbour, I’ve tended to do a day east, a day west, and a day of anything I think is worth still fishing.

“A scattered practice day reaffirmed that I should probably take that approach into this event. Aside from some execution issues, it worked to plan.”

Fishing hard structure and boats on the first day, good numbers of fish made it into his boat. However, size was lacking aside form a couple of standout fish.

Rocky points, washes and docks on Day 2 saw fewer fish but better quality. A mix of everything on Day 3 was almost a fail until the dying minutes of the day, where a patch of boats threw Kris some key upgrades.

“On the man-made structure, I switched between a 2.5” Bait Junkie bloodworm grub rigged on a 1/20oz #1 Bait Junkie jighead or Cranka Crab, with the odd light creature bait thrown in the mix,” Kris explained.

The ’20 Infeet 6101LFS, Caldia 2000, PE.6 in a soonto-be-released braid and 6lb J-thread X-Link FC for leader were the tools of choice.

On the rock and wash, Kris used the Infeet baitcast 732LFB, Tatula 70 and 8lb straight-through fluorocarbon to cast a Ghost Shad Spike 53SP, and really muscle the fish with relatively good success. A couple of good fish also came on a deep Rolling Crank through the morning.

“Having the live scoreboard was a cool feature of this event, however I never look at it so there’s no added pressure,” Kris said. “It was like a proper weigh-in tournament for me, where you find out how you go after everyone has dropped them on the scales. While everyone knew the fishing was tough, to come away with a 3rd place with the bags I produced was both a surprise and a delight.”

Despite the challenges of running a top level BREAM event in Australia’s busiest city, the Daiwa BREAM Australian Open remains a success, with over 7,000 people checking in to the event centre at www.abt.org. au to keep up to date with the live estimator scoreboard and weigh-in results.