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Dirty Water Bream Tactics
By Tomas McIntosh
As anglers, we understand that a lot of variables that we face in a day on the water are out of our control. Mother nature has a way of keeping us on our toes, with strong wind, pumping tides and heavy rain. All these things have a direct impact on water quality and adapting to these changing conditions can turn an average day on the water into a successful one. In this article I will be outlining a few tactics that you can implement to land a few more bream, when faced with dirty water on your local system.
Be Seen
Personally, one of the biggest factors that I believe can detract from people catching fish when their local system turns dirty is lure visibility. This is because the lures that they are normally throwing with success in clear conditions aren’t as visible to the fish in dirty water. This results in the lure not being seen as easily by the fish, ultimately resulting in less bites.
Generally, in clear water with good visibility, I am reaching for colours like Bloodworm, Hardy Head, Smoke Hologram and Opening Night. When the visibility starts to diminish, I switch to colours that stand out, such as Motor Oil, Midnight Oil, Gudgeon and Pumpkin. Most importantly, I see a lot of people making this mistake and throwing lures that aren’t visible in muddy water, with minimal visibility of two to six inches.
Then there are lure colours that are generally not even considered to be purchased by bream anglers as they aren’t natural enough. In some situations, this is certainly the case, and I wouldn’t throw a fluoro pink lure across gin clear flats, however in muddy water, absolutely! In muddy water colours that you should be looking at include Greasy Prawn, Black and Neon Pink.
Fish Structure
When the water turns dirty after rain, fishing hard structure can be a very successful technique. This could be a bridge, oyster racks, snags, or reefs. When the water clarity changes bream will pull onto structure for comfort, to have something over their head for protection or to have a known structure nearby.
Fishing structure in poor visibility can be tricky though as it is hard to monitor your lure to avoid snagging. As a result, fishing weedless with a TT SnakelockZ finesse or NedlockZ EWG jighead allows you to keep your lure in the zone for longer. Structure also provides the fish a current break, allowing them to sit in an eddy and conserve energy.
While fishing hard structure in dirty water is a very successful technique, fishing around soft structure like weedbeds can produce good quality fish too. This is because weed plays a critical role in the system as it constantly holds bait, such as shrimp, prawns, and baitfish. Weed also helps to warm and purify the water. With warmer than average, clean and bait dense water, fishing around weed while the water is dirty shouldn’t be overlooked.
Water Movement
After heavy rain there is an influx of water into the rivers and as a result the water level rises, seeing the river starting to flow harder than normal. Water movement brings food for fish with it, it stirs up the bottom and washes crustations off the edges and into the water. In metro systems, when it rains virtually all this water goes straight into the rivers. When this happens, drains on the edge of the rivers pump out a serious amount of water and these can be absolute treasure troves for hungry bream feeding.
Using Technology
When approaching a system and struggling to find fish, one of the best ways to find fish is to fire up the outboard and start scanning. Using a fish finder with high-definition Side Imaging and Down Imaging allows you narrow down the zones that you are going to fish.
The first thing that I am trying to find is bait. When you are finding balls of bait, active fish won’t be far behind. Once you have found these fish, especially those in water over 1.5m, maintaining bottom contact is important. My favourite way of using my fish finder is to use Side Imaging to scan the shallows looking for hidden timber. A lot of the cover in shallow water can be overlooked very easily by most anglers as they only fish the visible and obvious structure.
Scent
Scent plays a vital role in finesse fishing. Smothering your plastics in Pro-Cure Scent can help trigger the old factory settings of the fish. Scent allows you to convert those tentative bites into fish committing and scoffing the bait on the second go. I have also found that, during a tough bite, a plastic smothered in scent will catch a considerable number of fish on the outside of the face. This happens due to fish trying to get a taste and touch of the bait, before committing to it fully.
Next time you are out on the water after heavy rain and the water clarify is very poor, feel free to try some of these techniques to help you put a few more fish in the boat.
Cheers, Tomas
Gearing Up:
ZMan 2.5" GrubZ
ZMan 2.5" Slim SwimZ
TT Lures HWS (Hidden Weight System) Jigheads
TT HeadlockZ Finesse Jigheads
TT Lures NedlockZ EWG Jighead
TT Lures SnakelockZ Finesse Jighead
Bloody Tuna Pro-Cure Super Gel Scent