Don't Target Bream

This may seem like an odd way to start an article about bream fishing but for a non-hardcore bream angler like me, not targeting bream seems to land the stonkers. So what have I learnt about bream while fishing in my local estuary over the last few years. ??

The bream is probably the most accessible species of all fish to catch, even rivalling the humble flathead. The shore based option are endless, off the bank, rock walls, pylons, bridges and even the weed beds on a flooding tide are awesome hot spots. Fishing from a boat, kayak or SUP and your chances of landing a bream increase as you have access to more water and structure. Bream are comfortable in half metre of water in the estuary or thirty metres of water at sea, which is probably the last place you would expect to find one.

Along with the accessibility, bream also have a huge variety of favourite foods and prawns, baitfish, yabbies, pippies and chicken gut, cheese and bread are amongst some of the baits I have caught them on. I remember a fishing trip to Noosa with my good mate Andy and we ended up getting onto the bream on bread. We threw everything we had in the tackle box at them with no result and resorted to ripping crusts of our lunch, LOL. If you're keen to nail a couple of bream on bait, pumping some fresh yabbies or getting your hands on some fresh bait will better your chances.

As my girls have grown up over the years bream have been a species that I have got back into targeting,? because you can target them virtually anywhere and they are fun to catch, which keeps the girls keen on fishing. As I target most of my fish using artificial lures our go-to options for landing breambos are plastics and poppers.

Skinny water fishing (less than a metre on the flats) I like to use lightly weighted plastics, like a ZMan 2.5" Slim SwimZ or GrubZ, along with poppers. Casting them hard into the mangroves and structure I think has to be one of the best ways to target bream. The visual aspect of watching a bream stalk your plastic or popper and smash it off the surface is pretty awesome and hard to beat, and for this reason alone the girls keep hitting me up for topwater fishing trips. Over the years this technique has produced great numbers of fish but they seem to range in size from 20 - 30cm, respectable but no stonkers.

I spend most of my time targeting flathead and jewfish (mulloway) and in particular chasing bigger fish. As you can imagine my plastics and lure presentation are generally of a larger profile, ranging from 3 - 6" plastics and 80mm lures and larger. I tend to work the deeper edges up onto the flats and weed banks, which is not only perfect for the flathead and jewfish but bream also.

There are two particular sessions that really stand out for me in recent years. The first was a 3am morning trip, targeting jewfish on not only plastics but poppers as well. With the tide low and the water less than three metres deep, the jewfish tend to smash the bait off the surface. How cool would be to land a trophy jewfish off the surface right!

Everything went to plan; I landed a few smaller models on a 3-4" plastics and as the surface bite became more common I opted for a popper, a Fish Inc. Lures Fly Half 80mm Popper to be exact. My first well placed cast to the edge saw it get inhaled by a mid-sized jewfish and the fight was awesome until tragedy struck, it spat the popper at the boat but not before I got a good look at it.

With some new found enthusiasm and literally minutes until sunrise, I knew I didn't have long until the jewfish would head off looking for cover, so my casts came thick and fast, LOL. Halfway back to the boat my popper got hammered again. "HELL YEAH" on again! I was so pumped that my plan had come together... until I got it to the boat. "You're kidding me", I landed a cracking bream of around 36cm on an 80mm popper that is perfect for jewfish, jacks, barra, etc., fishing with 20Lb leader and braid. It's safe to say that I was quite surprised, not that a bream was patrolling the same stretch of water in search of a feed, but that it would smash such a large profile lure on heavy leader. Crazy right!?

The second was the most recent and it resulted in my biggest ever bream of 40/41cm (you can split hairs). Once again I was chasing jewfish just before day break and again I was using a larger profile plastic, a ZMan 4" DieZel MinnowZ. My leader was slightly lighter though, being 14lb, rigged with a 3/8oz TT Lures HeadlockZ jighead.

The tide was completely different this time, about half tide running up to high. The banks had heaps of water over them as well. I chose to sit well off the bank and slow roll and hop the plastic down into the deeper water. To be honest it wasn't a hot bite kinda day and it seemed to take forever to get a bite. It actually probably had something to do with the water temp being down.

As I headed toward the end of the bank that I was working, to where I presumed the weed bed ended, I got an awesome take. The plastic got absolutely hammered and whatever it was had some weight about it. As it turns out it was my biggest bream ever and it had me convinced it was solid flathead. Its head shakes and solid runs were outstanding, even on heavier gear and when I managed to get it into the boat I was truly stoked with what had just happened. The quality of the fish I'd just landed was awesome. Once again I was totally impressed and surprised by the size of the plastic that it had inhaled.

That's two fish that easily pushed the high 30-40cm mark that had smashed lures that were intended for much larger fish. So, moving into the summer and with the girls hitting me up for some more breambo sessions, I'm going to scale back my leader and increase the size of the lure presentations to 4" plus plastics and I won't be afraid to throw a big popper around either. Hopefully I can smack another PB bream while actually targeting them, LOL!

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