The inaugural New South Wales Bream Tournament Series closed out 2025 with a Botany Bay grand final that turned into a runaway. The winning team — Smartfish Precision Building Maintenance — finished with 8.81 kg over the two days, headlined by a 1.3 kg big bream and a 2.21 kg margin over second place.
Host Andrew Deap, the 2019 Hobie Kayak Fishing World Champion, broke down the result on the Bream Fishing Project podcast. The series, run for the first time in 2025, drew a strong field across George's River, Sussex Inlet, Lake Macquarie, Sydney Harbour and Botany Bay, with Saturday's grand final fishing tough under a slow bite period before a building northeasterly opened up the bay on the back of the run-in tide.
The winning skipper credited prior reconnaissance and modern sonar for finding the patch of fish that broke the comp open. "We wanted to start on the bridge," he told Deap, explaining that with the run-in tide delayed the team sat on Captain Cook Bridge picking off a bag of small fish before relocating. "We headed towards one of the bays, Woolware Bay, when that tide come up and that wind come up as well. We had a noraster and it was suited to the way we wanted to fish it."
That was the moment. The team upgraded its entire bag in roughly an hour by sight-fishing actively feeding bream on Garmin LiveScope. "We could see the fish very clearly and they were very active at that time," he said. "Once you found them, you sort of spot locked on them and really dialed in to what they were doing. I think the patch we found was all big fish — we had a bag of all 9-hundreds and one kegger."
Tackle was deliberately light: 6 lb braid and 5 lb leader, with Outback Lures' OG mussel as the lure of choice. "I don't think it matters about colour," he said. "I think Outback's got it pretty down pat with the way it sinks like an actual muscle. It's the shape, with the way it sinks. They like that."
Day two delivered the fish that sealed the result. "We seen fish on the back corner of one of the pylons and they were active," he said of the bridge bite that produced the 1.3 kg big bream in the final half hour. "We pitched out a mus and literally just worked the back through them — and as soon as it came through them, they were on it."
Second place went to Tane Tomasi and Adam Lacy of Zeus Tackle, who finished with 6.6 kg, mostly on Cranka Crab and mussel presentations after a slow Saturday morning. Asked about confidence under pressure, Tomasi leaned into his shop's tagline: "I honestly think the top three teams were casting with confidence."
Third went to the Brim Brothers — Aaron Clifton and Simon Moore — at 6.58 kg, just 20 grams behind Zeus Tackle. Clifton said the Brim Brothers had picked the winning bag almost to the kilo. "We thought, if we were looking at about six and a half kilo over the two days, we'd be up there somewhere — obviously not counting on first because they're just in a league of their own."
For coming home in front, the winning team banked roughly $5,250 once the big-bream bonus was added. The 2026 series kicks off in March on Lake Macquarie before stops at the Hawkesbury, St Georges Basin, Botany Bay, Mallacoota and Sydney Harbour, with the next grand final scheduled for 14 to 15 November at Lake Macquarie.