BREAM are a very widespread and complex species. They have a very strong following of sportfishers who chase them and there are several bream tournament circuits up and down the east coast that are well attended and highly competitive.
Bream fishermen get a bit of a raw deal from many other anglers because bream tournament anglers tend to have large and highly powered bass boats that roar around at a hundred miles and hour. They also have endless amounts of tackle and lures just to catch bream that they release. It does sound like sheer silliness I must admit but bream are very addictive.
Part of that attraction is the fact that bream are found in so many different environments and will eat a wide variety of lures. The following is not an article on how to catch bream but a list of various lessons that I’ve picked up from some very good bream fishos.
You’re likely to find bream in shallow water over summer and deeper water in the colder months. This is your clue on where to fish and what lures to use. As spring arrives I’ve learnt to concentrate on the flats with lightly weighted plastics or surface lures.
We like the plastics fished nice and slow before the wind starts and then go to topwater poppers and stickbaits when some wind picks up. The trick to fishing the flats is move slowly on the electric or even use some breeze and cover all of the water. Concentrate your casts over or around the weed beds. Don’t put two casts in the same spot unless you get an eat on the first one. When you do find fish, spot lock and pepper the area as bream will often school up. When fishing topwater keep a tight and direct line to the lure at all times. This will greatly reduce eats that don’t connect and produce hook ups.
I’ve learned to use long and light leaders in most situations. That’s 4 – 6 pound 90% of the time and 2-3 metres long. Around structure or snags we may go up to 8 pound but very rarely. We connect our leaders to the braid main line with an Improved Slim Beauty knot. That’s a 4 turn Uni Knot in the leader around the braid and then a 10 turn Blood Knot in the braid. It’s a very small knot that is strong and casts well. I trust it 100%.
Take a lot of time rigging your plastics so they are dead straight on the hook. This way they cast further and swim much better. Lure colour quite often depends on the water colour. It may sound counter-productive but we use brown lures in dirty water and green lures in green water.
Enjoy a sleep in during the colder months. You’ll catch bream all day so there’s no need to be on the water before the sun comes up. We usually hit the water between 7 and 8 over summer but it can be as late as 10am during winter. Keep an eye on the weather. Our favourite bream conditions are cloud cover with a 10 knot breeze.
We also like a high barometer of at least 1015hPa. On days like that we’ll fish hard and long. We also cover the water. If the flats are quiet we’ll try another one or fish the drop offs and edges of the flats. If that doesn’t work we’ll fish deeper with vibes or mussels. We also follow the cormorants. If we see them feeding on bait we’ll fish around them.
When fishing snags we’ll usually put a few short casts in to start with. It’s much easier to hook a fish 2 metres from cover that hook it right in tight. You’ll hook a lot of big bream right in the honey hole but extracting them on light gear can be very difficult. We always fish our plastics around snags and over the flats with no more that 1/16th of an ounce head. The last thing you want is too much weight that takes it straight to the bottom.
You won’t cast as far with lighter weighted plastics but they work much better and look more natural. I’m a big fan of ProLure 62mm Clone Prawns with 1/20th ounce hidden weights. I paint the hidden weight with orange nail polish so it look like an egg sack inside the lure. Work them ultra-slow with long pauses.
I’m never going to be a serious Bream Knobber. I wouldn’t own a bass boat with a 250HP motor and tournament fishing has never been my cup of tea. I also like a heap of other fishing to just limit myself to bream. They are good fun and readily available to me but I’ll never just fish for them. Despite this my kids rib me every chance they get about being a Bream Knobber.
