More than 33,000 bream caught, weighed and released from 5559 teams with 11,148 anglers in 113 tournaments over a span of 20 years is the culmination of the Vic Bream Classic Series.
And on November 22 and 23, the celebration of its 20th anniversary will take place at Metung on the Gippsland Lakes for the 2025 Viv Bream Classic grand final.
Fifty of the top bream tournament teams from the five qualifying rounds will converge on Metung to see who will be crowned the champion team in 2025.
The Vic Bream Classic Series has brought thousands of anglers from all over Victoria and interstate to the East Gippsland region for 20 years, along with many new anglers each year that get a taste of just what these picturesque towns have to offer.
This has started a long-term tradition of
visiting the region following the series and holidaying with their families. Over the past 20 years the series has injected an estimated 12 million dollars into the local economy of all the Victorian towns it has visited.
“The beauty of this style of catch and release tournament fishing is you get to fish with your best mate, dad, mum, brother or sister – it is up to you,” tournament director Bill Hartshorne said.
The tournaments are open to all age groups with the only restriction is that people under the age of 18 fish with a parent or approved guardian. All anglers must fish out of a boat with a licensed boat operator on board. If you have a child under 12 they can fish with you and another adult so you can make a team of three which is great to get the kids involved.
Teams compete using lure, fly or soft plastic lures to weigh in five live legal-sized breams on each day’s competition, with the heaviest two-day bag crowned the winner.
“If you love your lure fishing for bream and want to get better than there is no better way to fast track your skills than to compete in the Vic Bream Series, as there are any number of highly skilled anglers competing who will point you in the right direction, tell you the hot lure to use and best techniques to enable you to land that big bag of bream,” Hartshorne said.
“The teams format creates a fantastic social feel to the weekend while still maintaining a high level of competition among teams.
“Since its inception in 2005 the Vic Bream Classic Series has turned into a large family of passionate anglers who love to fish, socialise, and have fun across Victoria. These great bunch of guys and girls follow the series to each destination and forge lifelong friendships with other teams along the way.
“The 2025 Bream Classic Grand Final at Metung next weekend is our end-of-year celebration to crown the best of the best and you are all invited to join in the celebration. To see the monster bream on display that call the Gippsland Lakes home and to cheer on your favourite team, come to our live weigh in on Saturday and Sunday of competition from 2pm at the beautiful Metung Hotel. While you’re there you can grab a drink, have a feed and sit out in the stunning beer garden and watch all the action unfold.
“With over $40,000 in cash and prizes up for grabs next weekend all anglers will be leaving nothing on the table and every trick, technique, skill, secret lure and ounce of knowledge will
be unleashed to try to get in the money.
“You also have the chance to not go home
empty handed as while watching the action
you can enter our free crowd raffle where we will be giving away a tackle prize from one
of our awesome sponsors at on
Sunday’s presentations.
Alternatively, if you can’t get down to watch
the weigh in you can still see all the action by tuning into the Vic Bream Classics Facebook page at 2pm each day where the weigh in will be live streamed.”
For more information on the series or the grand final, visit the Vic bream Classic website or follow the Vic Bream Classics Facebook page.
