Competitors Blown Away – Morgan Wins Forster Quintrex Bream Challenge

[Steve Morgan]

COMPETITORS BLOWN AWAY – MORGAN WINS FORSTER QUINTREX BREAM CHALLENGE

After the first time in BREAM history a competition day has been cancelled, Brisbane’s Tim ‘the Bream’ Morgan carried his first day lead through to an emphatic victory at the Forster Quintrex BREAM Challenge. A culmination of the 2003 Quintrex NSW BREAM series, Forster provided 126 competitors picture-postcard conditions on the Saturday, followed by atrocious gale-force winds on the Sunday, forcing organisers to cancel the session for safety reasons.
Weighing a first day bag of five bream for 3.54kg, Morgan distanced himself from non-boater champion Josh Batterson (5/5, 2.86kg), Corrimal’s Paul Weare (4/5, 2.76kg), Dave Welfare (5/5, 2.62kg) and Mallacoota event winner Kevin Gleed (5/5, 2.52kg.
“I would have preferred a win after two days of fishing, but I’m really glad that I’m not out there today - that weather’s filthy,” Morgan responded at the presentation ceremony when asked about the nature of the victory. And he’s been knocking on the door of a win here for the last two years, running up to Andrew Howard in 2001 and Russ Williams in 2002.
Tim’s patterns and tackle varied little from his last second-placing at the Clyde, the weapon of choice an Atomic 2” Fat Grub soft plastic in Brown Crawdad colour rigged on a Gamakatsu 1/16oz Round 25 jighead that he’d deliver on a Millerods Bream Buster, Shimano Sustain 1000 reel, 4lb Fireline and 8lb Vanish leader.
“We concentrated on the dirty water line as it moved upstream on the incoming tide and fished the outside of oyster-lease washboards for the first couple of hours,” Tim explained. “I’d use a long cast and most of the time, the jig would get bitten on the initial sink.”
“After that, and as the tide rose more, I then moved to the natural banks opposite the leases and fished snags and natural structure in shallow water. The last two fish I upgraded came from oyster leases well upstream, so I tried a few different patterns today and they all seemed to work,” he continued.
“It’s a pretty good feeling to take the BREAM All Time Money Winners lead off Steve Starling, too,” he finished, as he found out that he’d surpassed Starling’s tally with the $1600 winners’ cheque.
Non-boater division winner, 20 year old Environmental Science student Josh Batterson, managed a second placing overall by fishing a totally different pattern. With his boater partner, David Welfare, the pair landed approximately 75 bream from weedy, shallow water a maximum of four feet deep.
“Dave picked up the pattern from the WA BREAM anglers on the internet and it was great fun,” Josh explained.
“We’d drift across the shallow water and sight-fish schools of bream with light line. Often the bream would school underneath aggregations of mullet. Light line and a finesse presentation was a must. A combination of hops and slow-rolling the lures got us bites,” he said.
Josh’s finesse tackle consisted of 1kg breaking strain Berkley Vanish fished off a G Loomis S842 spin rod and Shimano Stella 1000 reel. The deadly soft-baits were both muscadine Slider Crappie Grubs and bloodworm coloured Squidgies fished on a 1.5g Squidgie jighead. Josh fished them straight through to the 1kg line without a leader, due to the clear water.
Young Jesse Lomas added to his $300 tournament payout with the competition’s biggest bream – a 1.54 kg beast typical of the fish that make Forster famous and easily the winner of the $500 www.sportsfish.com.au big bream for the weekend.
This event also decided the NSW team to fish the Quintrex BREAM National Grand Final, to be held in the Clyde River in October this year. Captained by NSW 2003 BREAM Angler of the Year, Tim Morgan, the other seven members currently include Trent Butler, Steve Starling, Kevin Gleed, Andrew Howard, Josh Batterson, Travis Davies and Chris Wright.
With the WA, VIC and NSW teams now selected, only the Queensland BREAM events remain to finalise the field for the Grand Final. BREAM events are NOT invitational and further enquiries can be made by calling Stephen Booth during business hours on (07) 3268 3992.

Local Area Sponsors: Great Lakes Tourism, Graham Barclay Marine.
Series Sponsors: Quintrex boats, Mercury outboards, Suncorp boat insurance, Fishnet, Squidgie soft plastics, Shimano, PrawnStar lures, Slider soft baits, Halco lures, Mako sunglasses.
Associate Sponsors: Pacific Composites, Compleat Angler, VMC, Berkley, Storm, Motor Guide, SeaLink.

THE TOP TWENTY
ANGLER FISH WEIGHT PAYOUT
1. Tim Morgan 5/5 3.54kg $1,600
2. Josh Batterson 5/5 2.86kg Pacific Composites Rod + Pack
3. Paul Weare 4/5 2.76kg $600
4. David Welfare 5/5 2.62kg $600
5. Kevin Gleed 5/5 2.52kg $500
6. Steve Starling 5/5 2.40kg $450
6. Andrew Howard 5/5 2.40kg $450
8. Trent Short 5/5 2.32kg $350
8. Travis Davies 4/5 2.32kg $350
10. Trent Butler 4/5 2.26kg $300
10, Leo O’Reilly 3/5 2.26kg Mako Sunnies + Pack
12. Jesse Lomas 3/5 2.24kg $800
13. Mark Lawson 4/5 2.14kg
14. Chris Metcalfe 4/5 2.10kg
15. Lance Sulkouski 4/5 1.94kg
16. Chris Wright 4/5 1.86kg
17. Peter McWatters 4/5 1.84kg Shimano Reel + Pack
18. Michael Passau 3/5 1.68kg
19. Scott Bromly 3/5 1.66kg
20. Shayne Dyason 3/5 1.62kg

Big Bream – Jesse Lomas (1.54kg)

Pack = Sponsors pack of product from VMC, Storm, Slider, PrawnStar, Halco, Berkley.

[Bear]

Well done to the winners and congrats to ABT for doing the safe thing.

Seems to be a pattern forming with the comps guys. We had a few do something similar here in WA. I've got a new signature for the comp days.

Brilliant one day, crap the next.

Makes it interesting though.

Hey Guys.
When you say not invitational, does that mean anyone can enter?
I was under the impression that only the "State Team" could be part of it! Just curious, as it aint that much cash to fly over east at the moment!

Dave

[Craig_S]

He's not referring to the Final Dave, just the Qld qualifying event. Competitors from any state can enter another state's qualifying round.

In one of the BREAM vids I think there was a Qld guy who didnt make his own state team but managed to qualify as part of the NSW team. Maybe all us guys who didnt crack the WA squad should jet over to try and force a place in Qld

[mark savage]

Dave,
I think he maybe refering to the 'friendlies' and AOY events leading up to the naming of the state team.

Josh’s finesse tackle consisted of 1kg breaking strain Berkley Vanish fished off a G Loomis S842 spin rod and Shimano Stella 1000 reel.

i imagine that would have been a tussle and a half!

Oooops
Thanx guys. My bad.

Dave

Spad's, Sewelly and I are flying over for the Gold Coast round. I'm looking forward to it, can't wait. I've already qualified so the pressure is off. Plus Sewelly and I have four down days to chase bass.

In four weeks time I'll be catching Aussie Bass again!!!!!!