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Archived Tournament Results

Queensland Humminbird BREAM Events - the Quintrex Sanctuary Cove Challenge.
(1 & 2/6/2002)

CHRIS METCALFE BEATS BIG COVE BREAM FIELD

Gold Coast BREAM angler Chris Metcalfe weighed ten live bream totalling 6.60kg from the Gold Coast’s waters to top 93 other anglers competing in the first round of the Queensland Humminbird BREAM Events - the Quintrex Sanctuary Cove Challenge.

Based from the Gold Coast City Marina and with the daily weigh-ins taking place at the Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show, the event recorded an incredible improvement in anglers’ ability to catch bream on lures. Over the two days, 460 live bream were presented to the weigh master, beating the previous year’s record of 161 fish quite convincingly.

Increasingly rough and windy conditions didn’t deter anglers from travelling from the Jumpinpin in the north to the Nerang River in the south to chase their maximum limit of five, live bream per day. Indeed, 18 anglers achieved their maximum limit of 10/10 and there were 51 daily limits weighed throughout the weekend.

Chris, however, chose to travel each day to a section of the Nerang River canals between Jupiters Casino and the Bond University to target bigger fish.
“It’s been incredibly dry on the coast this year and I reckoned that the bigger bream would be further upstream,” Chris said, “even though the six-knot areas meant that fishing time was reduced and travelling time increased.”

Chris targeted both bridge pylons and pontoons with his favourite bream lure - a 2” single-tailed soft plastic bait in a pumpkinseed colour. He rigged the bait on a #4 Mustad Aberdeen hook that had been fashioned into a jig head with a 5/0 split shot. Using an Ian Miller Bream Buster rod teamed with a Team Daiwa-S 1500CU reel, 4lb Fireline and a 6lb Vanish leader, Chris cast close to structure and fished incredibly slowly.

“After getting a hit, I reckon that it’s important to just drop the rod tip and let the fish eat the soft plastic bait,” Chris continued, “If you try to set the hook too quickly, you’ll often bounce the hook out of the hard part of the mouth. Just let the fish take up the slack and when it loads the rod, wind it in.”

Chris fishes the Nerang every Sunday and tries to never fish the same part of the river twice.

“There are so many places to lure bream on the coast that maybe I’ll never fish them all,” he finished, “but I sure liked winning my first BREAM event and now I’m hungry for more.”

Second placed Paul O’Sullivan, a Gold Coast science student, fished the same canals as Chris to achieve his 10/10, 6.08kg bag. Fishing mainly bridge pylons on the Saturday and an increasing number of pontoons on the Sunday, he’d sink his lure deep and the retrieve it with a slow, steady, shaking retrieve. He’d make two casts to each area and then move on.

His secret weapon was an Atomic 1 1/2” Baby Craw soft plastic lure in the Pumpkinseed colour. Rigged on a 1/8oz Gamakatsu Round 25 jighead and 6lb fluorocarbon leader, Paul used his favourite G Loomis Crankbait 781 spin rod coupled with a TiCA Libra 2500 reel and although the rod didn’t last the weekend after being smashed in a livewell-lid accident, his fish sure did.

“A lot of my favourite areas were blown-out in the 25-knot winds, but there were enough sheltered spots to get the fish I needed for a high placing,” Paul said.

Tim Morgan (10/10, 6.02kg), Trent Butler (9/10, 5.40kg) and John Schofield (10/10, 5.18kg) filled out the top five placings.

The $500 Quintrex Big Bream of the weekend was caught by 6th placed Steve Chenoweth. The 1.52kg fish smashed the current Queensland Big Bream record by 400 grams. Steve caught the fish in the main arm of the Nerang River near Cypress Gardens an a Motor Oil coloured 2” single tailed grub rigged on a Gamakatsu 1/16oz jighead.

Completing the Queensland legs of the Humminbird BREAM events, will be the Mercury Caloundra BREAM Challenge, to be held on 27-28 July. Entry forms are available in Fishing Monthly’s July magazines or from www.bream.com.au. - ABT.

FINAL SCORES
Angler FISH WEIGHT Payout
METCALFE Chris 10 6600 $600 + Humminbird
O'SULLIVAN Paul 10 6080 $500 + KeepAlive
MORGAN Tim 10 6020 $400
BUTLER Trent 9 5400 $300
SCHOFIELD John 10 5180 $200
CHENOWETH Steve 10 5020 $500
DAVIES Travis 10 4980
LOMAS Jesse 9 4920
SPADACCINI Geoff 10 4900
FITZPATRICK Sean 10 4820
MATE Mark 10 4700
SULKOWSKI Lance 10 4680
MORAN Steve 10 4640
CONNOLLY Mike 10 4580
SMITH Adam 10 4560
METCALFE Michael 10 4420
WARD Mark 10 4320
DANIEL Dave 10 4120
KANOWSKI Steve 10 4060
CRAIG Brody 10 4040
WILSON Steve 10 3900
MEDCALF Jason 9 3780
DELISSER Mike 8 3740
DIMMICK Darryl 7 3700
PALAZZI Mark 8 3320
LAWSON Mark 6 3240
FITZPATRICK Liam 8 3080
MORGAN Peter 7 3060
GRANADA Dexter 9 3000
SIMMONS Craig 8 2980
SHORT Trent 6 2800
FRASER Matt 7 2780
BLUNDELL Wayne 7 2760
MORGAN Jay 6 2680
RIGG Stephen 5 2500
LAMPHAM Dean 7 2460
STEAD Trevor 5 2240
LEE Mick 6 2200
TURNER Brad 6 2140
DUNNE Gavin 4 2060
BATTERSON Josh 5 1980
STEAD Danny 5 1920
BROMLY Scott 5 1840
PUDDIFOOT Raef 5 1840
HOTZAGER Mark 4 1700
KELLY Brenton 5 1680
HUTTON Andrew 4 1680
FAVAGER Mal 4 1560
McPHERSON John 4 1540
LOMAS Phil 3 1480
MASTERS Jade 5 1470
WILSON Greg 4 1440
ROBINSON Tony 4 1400
LINDSAY Shane 3 1360
SMITH Tony 3 1340
O'REILLY Leo 1 1340
WALKER Kai 3 1260
KAYAS Tolga 3 1260
SIROTTI John 3 1220
ALLEYN Wade 3 1200
GOULDSTONE Nick 3 1200
GALLOWAY Ian 2 1120
SINGLETON Colin 3 1080
MADDOCK Ryan 2 1020
FARRELL Rod 2 940
FEHLBERG Ira 2 940
SIROTTI Christian 2 920
HANRAHAN Sean 2 920
PEARCE Barry 2 900
GILLIVER Dale 2 820
WALKER Dion 2 780
CADE Paul 2 780
GAULD Grant 2 760
TROTTER Tom 2 640
RICATTI Rio 2 640
PLANT Chris 2 640
HOLMAN Brad 2 640
NUNN Cameron 2 620
EAVES Todd 1 520
PLANT Lachlan 1 500
ROBINSON Peter 1 460
GRIMA Natalie 1 460
MACLEOD Scott 1 380
HORN Michael 1 380
BRADSHAW Jamie 1 380
RODGER Peter 1 360
JOHNSON Bob 1 360
SINCLAIR Dale 0 0
SIMMONS Ricky 0 0
PERKINS Tony 0 0
DAVESON John 0 0
BEATTIE Andrew 0 0