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Healey Taps Tom’s Creek in BREAM Opener

It was definitely a case of quality over quantity for on-fire breamer, Mark Healey. Landing only 15 bream in two days, Healey recognised that the quality was in the Toms Creek area of Gippsland Lakes and boxed eye-watering limits from the area over two tournament sessions.

His fish averaged 1.32kg each - that’s ten fish at 39cm fork length each, which surely lets Gippsland Lakes stake its claim to being the best BREAM fishery in Australia.

It seems that a Net Free Gippsland Lakes is yielding results a LOT faster than expected.

Here’s how he did it.

“I think that the secret for me was to find that good water quality. It had to be tannin stained but not muddy. The rains over summer just moved the fish a little - they didn’t make them swim all the way out of the system, so I just needed to locate them,” Healey said.

Each day he caught several fish in Toms Creek and a couple of fish outside the creek. Some of these were in areas that he hadn’t fished before.

Healey used just one lure the whole event - a Jackall Deep Chubby in Brown Suji colour. On his lighter outfit, he upgraded the factory hooks to Decoy chemically sharp trebles, but on his heavier outfit he left the factory hooks on.

His lighter outfits included a pair of Shimano Shimano Zodias rods - the 270 in L and UL configurations that he matched with Shimano reels and 6lb Kairiki braid with 6lb Ocea leader. His upgrade rod for the heaviest country was a Shimano X-Pride 6’10” ML rod with a 2500 Stella and the same line combination.

“I found that I didn’t really need leader heavier than 6lb, as with the barnacle encrusted snags, it wouldn’t matter if you had 6 or 16lb, they’d shred you. That said, these black bream usually cooperate when you hook them up. I didn’t lose many at all,” Healy continued.

His retrieve was a simple slow roll and his net of choice the Shimano Environet.

“I used the traditional Environet on Day 1 and the rubber coated mesh on the second day and I was tired of trying to untangle the trebles from the mesh. I’ll be going back to the Original net in the future,” he said.

Taking home $5,000 for his efforts and an instant Grand Final qualification on his home lake of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, Healey has already established himself as the early favourite in the season ending event.

The Grand Final prize is a fully rigged Alloycraft boat with Mercury outboard package.

SLATER SNARES SECOND

After prefishing Tom’s Creek, Daiwa’s Tom Slater decided that he wanted quantity over quality and left the spot where Mark Healy ultimately won the event. He chose instead to fish both flats and structure around Paynesville.

Arguably, it was a good decision.

Starting on the popular flat at the northern side of the township after driving to Paynesville, Slater started with a bang, landing a 41cm fork length fish nearly immediately and filling his bag early and easily. Later he moved to a second flat and added another kilo-kicker to his limit.

Ultimately, he fished an isolated rock patch late in the session to upgrade some smaller fish with 37 and 38cm specimens to weigh around 5.7kg - good enough for third place overnight.

He used a combination of Daiwa Double Clutch 48s in Chrome Belly colour and Daiwa Spike 44MR in Tannin Flash to fool the bream. Switching to 3lb Daiwa J-Thread later in the session as the fish became pressured.

“My secret tool on the flats is my Humminbird side-image. I have it mounted on my electric motor and I can pick the paths of where the bream are swimming, It’s like how we use it for barra, just smaller,” Tom said.

With the forecast for Day 2 promising light winds until the early afternoon, Tom opted to start at Metung, drive across and prepare for a late session flurry.

That’s exactly what transpired, with the fish being slow early and only accumulating a small limit.

At 11:30am, he ventured into urban Paynesville and upgraded his whole bag in an hour on a prototype small BaitJunkie shrimp, but his best fishing was still to come. With a late check-in time, his final drift of his productive Day One flat in the wind yielded a 41cm bream on the Double Clutch and a 38cm upgrade on the Spike.

It was the final flurry he need to catapult into second spot, although he was still a kilo and a half short of the winner.

His preferred outfits were out of the Daiwa INFEET 23 stable - the Double Clutch he fished on a EX 722ULFS with a Revelry FC 200S and 10lb J Braid Expedition and 5lb X-Link FD leader while the Spike he used a Z 743 ULRD with the same reel and J Thread Finesse 3lb straight through fluorocarbon.

BRUCE MOVES FROM 19th to 1ST

Forster’s Tim Bruce started his 2024 ABT season off with a bang, winning his first ABT title from the back of the boat. In fact, it was one of the best comebacks we have ever seen for a win, moving from 19th place after Day 1 to 1st after the final session finished.

He did this with a 3/3, 3.914kg bag which added to his Day One bag of just over 2kg. His final tally was 6/6 for 5.931kg. A great effort from the back of the boat.

His fish on Day One came off the Mitchell Flats with boater Michael Hunt, but his second day fish with boater Peter Breukel came from Steel Bay. And they had to rotate through the baits to find what they wanted.

Eventually, the schooled fish they were seeing in 7 to 9 feet of water responded to a Hurricane Sting 37 blade with assist hooks. Loading it with scent and hopping it off the bottom drew a string of fish for the pair.

Bruce fished the bait off a Samaki Zing Extreme 7’2” rod matched with a Shimano Stradic 1000 sized reel, 8lb Daiwa J Braid and a 6lb Yamatoyo fluorocarbon leader.

Instantly qualifying for the Daiwa BREAM Grand Final later in the year, Bruce plans to fill out the year by fishing the NSW BREAM events.