Mick Collins, a 39 year old Sydney fishing guide achieved several personal milestones in his most recent weekend of tournament fishing. He weighed his first and second ever limits of five bream at an ABT BREAM event, but more importantly, he won the MotorGuide sponsored leg of the Quintrex National BREAM series with the sum total of his consecutive limits. In doing so, he qualified for the National BREAM Grand Final and pocketed $3,000 for his efforts.

Winner Mick Collins

With a commanding final lead over second placed Queenslander, Michael Metcalfe (10/10, 6.37kg), who has already qualified for the Grand Final, Collins joins Taree young-gun Kris Hickson (10/10, 5.98kg), previous season-winner Chris Metcalfe (10/10, 5.78kg) and BREAM newbie, Clayton Gusmerini (10/10, 5.88kg) on the trail to the season's ultimate event.

Fishing a mixture of hard and soft bodied lures, Collins targeted oyster racks in Porto bay early in the sessions before changing his location to Moonee Moonee Creek to search for larger fish later in the day.

"Clear water bream and I have an understanding - I don't go near them and they come nowhere near my line," Collins joked as he explained his winning tactic on stage to the weigh-in crowd, "so I fish dirtier water, and to do that, I use rattling lures."

Mick's lures of choice included 2" Storm Rattle Grubs in Pumpkinseed colour rigged on Gamakatsu heavy wire jigheads as well as shallow diving Rebel Crawdads in brown/orange and Predatek Micro-Mins in black/silver and rainbow trout hues.

"When fishing the hardbaits, a dead slow retrieve worked best - just fast enough to get the rattles inside working, and when casting the soft plastics, I'd aim to keep the lure up and off the bottom with a series of shakes and jerks - it must have looked pretty weird for any observers, but it really worked," said Collins, who landed 10 legal fish on the Saturday session and eight on Sunday.

Collins' tournament winning tackle included a 7' Shimano Bass Spin rod coupled with an Okuma Inspira 1500 reel, 8lb Fireline and 17lb Maxima leader.

I'd really like to thank my non-boater on Sunday - Steele Lambert. Man, he's the quickest net on the east coast and he got smoked by some real Hawkesbury bruisers. It was a shame his results didn't reflect his talent," Collins added.

Finishing, Mick commented that he hoped to make the top ten for this event, and maybe even the top four.

"But winning still hasn't sunk in. It's beyond all of my expectations," he said.

A fast finishing Michael Metcalfe had nothing but praise for this near-Sydney fishery.

"The Hawkesbury bream are big, mean and really have attitude," Michael beamed as he collected his first paycheque from his new, ultra-fast breamin' rig, "and the extra speed in the new boat meant that I had a heap of extra fishing time."

Michael spent all of his extra time fishing racks at the top of Moonee Moonee creek.

"Without a word of a lie, I got busted by big bream at least half a dozen times each day," Metcalfe lamented, but I landed five fish on the Saturday and six on the Sunday and that was enough for me."

Metcalfe's weapon of choice was a 2" pumpkinseed coloured single tailed grub rigged on a Squidgie Finesse 1.5g #4 jighead. Every second cast he'd spray it with Yum Garlic scent and his retrieve varied markedly from Collins'.

"I'd cast up alongside the racks and virtually drag the lure back to the boat. If anything, maybe a few small hops, but that'd be followed by a pause," Mike explained.

His delivery was assisted with a 6'7" Millerods Bream Buster Brawler, Shimano Stella 2500 reel, 6lb Fireline and 16lb Stren Magna-Thin leader.

The GoSo Adventure Wear Big Bream was landed by Matthew Kelly. At 1.58kg, it pipped Jay Morgan's Day One 1.53kg bream and snared the $500 bonus.

Leading amateur, Josh Batterson, left daylight between himself and the rest of the pack with a 10/10, 5.92kg two day limit that sends him to the Amateur division of the Grand Final, along with Chris Cleave, David Joss and Mark Collins.

The next event in the BREAM calendar is on the Glenelg River at the end of April. Enquiries to Simon Goldsmith on (07) 3268 3992 b/h.

Results Next Page:

Continued...

PRO		FISH	WEIGHT	PAYOUT
Michael	COLLINS	10	6.88	$3,000
Michael	METCALFE	10	6.37	$1,200
Kris	HICKSON	10	5.98	$1,000
Chris	METCALFE	10	5.78	$1,000
Clayton	GUSMERINI	10	5.58	$600
Mark	MANGOLD	10	5.50	$500
Adam	O'CONNOR	10	5.24	$400
Glen	HELMERS	8	4.97	$300
Tim	MORGAN	8	4.65	$300
Dave	WELFARE	7	4.51	$300
Paul	ALLEN	9	4.32
Andrew	HOWARD	9	4.25
Chris	WRIGHT	8	4.01
Paul	WEARE	6	3.95
Matthew	KELLY	6	3.89	$500
Terry	PARMENTER	7	3.18
John	HERZOG	4	3.14
Ross	LAMOTTE	5	3.09
Craig	SIMMONS	5	3.08
Rick	TURNER	5	2.96
Bill	MAGUIRE	6	2.91
Alan	DAURIAN	6	2.86
Jay	MORGAN	4	2.85
Darren	BORG	5	2.84
Wayne	BURLEY	5	2.82
Andrew	CORNFORD	5	2.79
Scott	TOWNER	5	2.68
Jamie	MAGUIRE	5	2.39
Travis	DAVIES	4	2.28
Martin	RICHARDSON	5	2.17
Joe	CRUST	3	2.17
Matthew	CLARKE-BRUCE	4	2.14
Mark	MATE	3	2.13
Stephen	DUFF	4	2.03
Rod	METSELAAR	4	2.02
Lance	SULKOWSKI	5	1.93
Matthew	TINKER	4	1.89
Andrew	HYSLOP	3	1.87
Mark	PIGRAM	4	1.84
Peter	KELLEHER	3	1.68
Dean	NASH	4	1.65
Mark	DUNPHY	2	1.63
David	OTWAY	3	1.38
Richard	ROBSON	3	1.32
Scott	GREENTREE	2	1.08
John	BALCOMB	2	1.07
Michael	HELTBORG	2	1.03
David	TOSLAND	1	0.80
Jesse	LOMAS	2	0.78
Daniel	BRAY	2	0.77
Mick	PASSAU	1	0.74
Adam	KARAPINAR	1	0.74
Mark	PEDERSEN	1	0.67
Jack	OLMOS	1	0.62
Tom	WEIERS	1	0.61
John	NICITA	1	0.54
David	BLACKMAN	1	0.49
Mick	MEE	1	0.48
Bill	KARAYANNIS	1	0.46
Craig	SEGINOR	1	0.42
AMATEUR		0	0.00
Josh	BATTERSON	10	5.92	$500+pack
Chris	CLEAVE	6	4.16	Prize Pack
David	JOSS	8	3.95	Prize Pack
Mark	COLLINS	4	3.27	Prize Pack
Mark	McCREDIE	5	2.93	Prize Pack
Michael	HAZILIAS	5	2.83	Prize Pack
Dave	SEAMAN	5	2.69	Prize Pack
Daniel	BONOCCORSO	5	2.59	Prize Pack
Russell	BABEKUHL	6	2.58	Prize Pack
Grant	THOMPSON	5	2.58	Prize Pack
Glyn	SARGENT	6	2.49
Mick	ROBERTS	4	2.19
John	PUSSELL	5	2.08
Peter	McWATTERS	2	2.02
Brett	YOUNG	4	1.93
Shane	GREENWOOD	4	1.91
Daniel	FOLLEY	4	1.90
Jeff	ABRAHAMS	4	1.86
Nicholas	NOVARO	4	1.69
Brendan	HUGHES	4	1.68
Norm	KEMP	3	1.52
Brian	STEELE	3	1.31
Max	HAGUE	2	1.14
Joel	TEGERT	2	0.98
Ron	ABDILLA	2	0.96
Sam	REID	1	0.95
Ben	BRAY	2	0.86
Mick	ELSLEY	1	0.83
Byron	GARDINER	2	0.80
Brent	DELANY	1	0.75
Bill	PARASIRIS	1	0.64
William	LONGANI	1	0.61
Craig	GREENAWAY	1	0.61
Mark	HEFFERNAN	1	0.60
Sebastian	DEBELLIS	1	0.57
David	DeLUCA	1	0.56
Todd	YOUNG	1	0.54
Jim	HICKSON	1	0.46
Morgans	JORGENSEN	1	0.46
Peter	RICH	1	0.45
Mick	JOHNSON	1	0.45
Richard	WHITTY	1	0.44
Matthew	WEBB	1	0.43
Geoff	CAIRNS	1	0.41
Kyle	JONES	1	0.38
Adam	WALD	1	0.36
Alan	LOFTUS	1	0.31

GoSo Big Bream – Matthew Kelly (1.58kg) $500.