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5 Tips for Winter Bream
By Jacob Iedema
Every year winter rolls around and with it the bream fishing fires up. However, there are a few tips and tricks that can boost your success when targeting these beautiful fish. In my region (southeast Queensland), winter bream often fight harder, are more aggressive and more abundant in the middle months of the year, often making for some fun fishing. Although without the correct techniques, these winter opportunities can be overlooked.
Fishing Finesse
Fishing finesse isn’t only the key to success, it’s also the key to enjoying bream fishing to its maximum potential. Bream are wary fish to say the least and in winter, when the water is crystal clear and the baitfish are small, they pay extra attention to the details of their surroundings. Light leaders, light spin rods, smooth drags, slow sinking lures and staying quiet on the water are all a part of fishing finesse for winter bream.
Light fluorocarbon leaders are essential when targeting bream in clear water, with anything heavier than 10lb well and truly a disadvantage. Leaders down to 4lb aren’t uncommon when fishing for bream, while 6lb and 8lb leaders are a common option. The 10lb is viable when fishing tight structure. Along with a light leader, a reasonable length of leader is also important to hide the high-vis braid from wary fish. This is especially the case when fishing the flats, where your line can be seen from all directions and dragging braid past fish risks spooking them.
Having a suitable light spin rod, designed to suit the style of lure that you wish to use for bream is a must to feel the subtle bite and to work the lure correctly to entice the bite. I use a slightly different rod for each type of lure that I use to target bream, with all suited to perform the best with the given style of lure. For example, a stiffer, faster actioned rod will be better suited to fishing soft plastics as setting the hook and hopping a soft plastic will be easier. While a more tippy, slower actioned rod will perform better as a surface lure or crankbait rod. In saying that there can be an in-between which can be used to throw everything from blades to soft plastics, so don’t stress if you’re starting out with a single rod. It’s just all about what feels best for the angler and if one rod is simpler and easier for the user, then there’s nothing wrong with that. A 1-3kg rod is ideal for bream fishing and will allow small lures to be easily cast a long distance.
Having smooth drag on your bream reels is paramount, as fish can often be hooked in the lip and without a smooth drag the hook can often pull out. Having a smooth drag helps minimise the chance of hooks bending, line snapping or any other terminal tackle failures, as it reduces the stress on the line, while keeping constant pressure on the fish.
A slow sinking lure isn’t always a benefit; however, in some circumstances it is crucial that a soft plastic slowly flutters its way to the bottom. When fishing structure like pontoons, rock walls and mangrove edges, bream will always be looking for falling food. The slower your lure can flutter to the bottom, the better chance you’ve got of attracting the attention of a bream. To achieve this, soft plastics rigged with a 1/12oz weighted jighead or less, either in a standard jighead or TT HWS (Hidden Weight System), are both viable options.
Staying quiet out on the water is a key component of bream fishing and whether you’re wading the flats, kayaking the canals, or cruising along by electric motor, staying quiet will improve your results on the water.
Structure
Bream don’t just hang around the bottom of silty rivers and waterways as much as people like to believe. However, they are drawn toward any trace of structure as a means of providing cover and often as a food source. This can include weed flats, pontoons, rock walls, mangrove edges, reefs, boat hulls and submerged rocky outcrops.
Weed Flats
Weed flats are some of the best locations to target bream around the estuaries as they attract crustaceans, worms, and baitfish, that bream love to chew on. Flats can either be high tide flats or low tide flats, with the name suggesting when the flat is covered in water. High tide flats are only submerged on a high tide while low tide flats are a fishable depth when the tide is out. Often the low tide flats are more productive as there is a healthier growth of weed that is never out of the water. However, both can produce quality fish.
Targeting bream on the flats can be as simple as hopping a soft plastic along the bottom or rolling (winding) a soft plastic just above the weed. After a long cast out across the flat, allow your lure to sink to the bottom under a taut line. Proceed by slowly rolling your soft plastic four or five metres, before momentarily pausing it or giving it a few hops and then continue rolling it back. Bream will often peck at the lure on the slow roll and commit once it is paused in their face or jerked away from them. Plastics with a lot of tail action work well for this retrieve and some that are effective choices on flats bream include ZMan 2.5” and 3” Slim SwimZ, 2.5” GrubZ, 3” Baby GOAT and ZMan 3” MinnowZ.
Another option, if the flat isn’t too weedy, is a Ned Rig style soft plastic, which can be used to hop across the bottom. Imitating a crab, lobster or prawn, Ned Rig style soft plastics are an excellent option when fishing for flats bream. Popular presentations include a 2.5” TRD CrawZ, 2” CrusteaZ or 2.75” TRD BugZ, generally paired with a TT NedlockZ jighead to create a rapid stand-up presentation.
Pontoons
Canals can be some of the most fish rich waters in an urban scheme and they certainly hold their fair share of quality bream. Popular techniques for bream in canals include fishing surface lures and crankbaits. Soft plastics however are more versatile and often more effective when fishing pontoons.
Generally, there are a few ways of approaching a pontoon, including targeting the sides, the front edge and up behind the pontoon. The front and sides can be fished by slowly rolling (slowly winding) a soft plastic just below the lip of the pontoon with a reasonably weighted jighead. Usually a 1/12oz, 1/8oz or 1/6oz will suffice for this purpose. Throwing a few flicks and pauses into the retrieve can be an effective option when trying to entice the bite.
The sides and behind the pontoon can be fished a little differently and hopping a lightly weighted soft plastic adjacent to the structure is a great way to tempt out that wary big oyster munching bream. Anything below a 1/8oz jighead is light enough for this, being that the lighter the jighead, the slower and more natural the presentation will look on the fall.
Rock Walls
Rock walls covered in barnacles, oysters and weed are a prime spot for finding a good bream and flicking soft plastics along them can be the most effective technique. Rock walls with current pushing up against them, forming pressure edges, often hold baitfish and active bream ready for a feed.
Small presentations with a good tail action don’t go unnoticed by bream and ZMan’s 2.5” GrubZ, Slim SwimZ and 2” CrusteaZ are perfect soft plastics for the job. Fishing a slightly heavier leader is a viable option when fishing around sharp oysters and rocks, with 8lb and 10lb being a sensible choice at times like this.
Alternatively, another effective technique involves hopping blades at the base of rock walls to target bream. This can be a great option when the fish won’t eat any of the traditional presentations.
Mangrove Edges
Fishing around mangrove edges can be tricky at times, with fish holding up in the roots of the trees and being shy to eat a lure. However, fishing soft plastics enables lures to be skipped up and into the roots where the fish are, especially when utilising a TT HWS (Hidden Weight System) jighead. Ned Rig and small crustacean presentations come into their own when fishing mangroves, as they perfectly imitate the natural food sources the fish are hunting. Popular presentations include the 3” Baby GOAT, 2” CrusteaZ, 2.5” TRD CrawZ and 2” and 2.5” ZMan GrubZ.
Reefs
Fishing Shallow reefs for bream is always a fun time, often with lots of fish coming aboard when a pattern is worked out. Finding what reef dwelling bream are after can prove difficult at times, however the rewards are always worth the trouble. Bream will be commonly found smashing a soft plastic on the way to the bottom or crunching a well-presented blade jigged vertically.
Reef fishing for bream is also a great way to get younger kids involved as bait fishing can often produce large numbers of fish. These shallow reefs fish best at low light periods and can be easily shut down by the roar of an engine, so it pays to be quiet.
Boat Hulls
Boat hulls fish similarly to pontoons. They are a large floating structure that bream pick the barnacles and crabs off. Soft plastics can be sight cast at feeding fish or rolled along the sides of the boats. Remember, it is paramount that anglers respect other people’s property, especially when fishing around moored boats.
Stay Mobile
Whether fishing landbased, from a kayak or boat, staying mobile is the key to catching more fish on lures. Once a pontoon has been fished it is very rare for bream to come back a second time, so onto the next pontoon you go. The same goes for any structure being fished, bream can shut down easily, so constantly finding new fish to display a lure to, will increase your success out on the water.
Listen for Fish
Bream feeding off surface or off the edges of boat hulls or pontoons will make a signature kissing noise when feeding. This indicates that there are feeding fish there. Fish feeding on the edges of structure can be a hard prospect to cast to, often being very aware of their surroundings. A very lightly weighted soft plastic is your best bet for converting a hook up. Fishing the flats and hearing the kissing sound often signals very active fish, feeding on prawns or baitfish, and casting to them will often produce a hook up.
Match The Hatch
Matching the hatch is a common saying for fishos, meaning to match the natural bait with your chosen lure. This has the benefit of targeting fish that are honed in on a certain bait source, with a replica of that bait type. This often means fish are more aggressive towards your lure and strike with less hesitation as it looks the same as all the other bait around them.
Bream are readily available, aggressive through the winter months and great fun on light gear. Hopefully the points above help you get stuck into a few this coming winter.
Tight Lines, Jacob
My Winter Bream Gear
Light Bream Spin Set Ups
Okuma Cerros Spinning Rods - CER-S-701L 7’, 1-3kg, 1-8g Cast, Medium Action
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel – ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse X8 Braid - 6lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader – 4lb-6lb
TT Rods Black Mamba Spin Rod - BMS701L 7’, 1-3kg, 1-8g Cast, Fast Action
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel – ITX-1000
Platypus Pulse X8 Braid - 6lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader – 4lb-6lb
Medium Light Spin Set Up
Okuma Cerros Spin Rod - CER-S-701ML 7’, 2-4kg, 1-15g Cast, Medium Action
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel – ITX-2500
Platypus Pulse X8 Braid - 8lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader – 8lb-10lb