A finely tuned LiveScope session in Woolware Bay decided the inaugural NSW Bream Tournament Series Grand Final on Botany Bay, with Smartfish Precision Building Maintenance finishing with 8.81 kg of bream over two days — a 2.21 kg winning margin and the heaviest single bream of the comp at 1.3 kg.
Speaking to Andrew Deap on the Bream Fishing Project podcast, the winning skipper said the team locked in on the front of the bay rather than gambling on a long run upriver. He used Garmin LiveScope on a prefish day to mark patches of fish without targeting them, banking the locations for game day.
The decisive move came when the tide and wind aligned on Saturday. "We headed towards one of the bays, Woolware Bay, when that tide come up and that wind come up as well," he said. "We upgraded our whole bag within maybe an hour in Woolware Bay, predominantly throwing muscles. We could see the fish, they were active — and it worked out for us."
Tackle was deliberately stripped back: 6 lb braid, 5 lb fluorocarbon leader, and the Outback Lures OG mussel rotated through colours that, in his view, did not matter on the day. "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."
The 1.3 kg big bream came on day two off a bridge pylon late in the session. "We pitched out a mus and literally just worked the back through them. As soon as it came through them, they were on it," he said. The fish swam clean through the structure, surviving the gauntlet of barnacle-covered concrete on a 6 lb leader.
Behind them, Zeus Tackle's Tane Tomasi and Adam Lacy stuck to mussels and crabs for 6.6 kg. Tomasi credited mindset as much as tactics, riffing on his shop's tagline. "I honestly think the top three teams were casting with confidence."
Brim Brothers Aaron Clifton and Simon Moore finished third at 6.58 kg after a slow morning in the Woronora before working a milk run of edges with Cranka Crabs. "Each time we fished it, we knew it was hard — just weren't getting the number of fish that we would normally get," Clifton said of the lead-in.
The 2026 NSW series schedule has been confirmed across Lake Macquarie, the Hawkesbury, St Georges Basin, Botany Bay, Mallacoota and Sydney Harbour, with the next grand final at Lake Macquarie in November.
