Tackle Tactics » Tips-Techniques » Saltwater-Estuary » The Lure of Bream on Mono

The Lure of Bream on Mono

By Sean Bekkers

Sean Bekkers gets back to basics, putting together a combo spooled with nylon monofilament, that crosses over well from bait to lure fishing, while also making an excellent option for anglers that want to flick a few lures, while not being confident braid users. Check out this estuary allrounder.

Catching bream for a lot of people is their bread-and-butter table fish and they are well received mixed in with a feed of whiting and flathead. For others, the bream is a premium sportfish, highly sought after amongst tournament anglers, reflected in the dedicated tournaments found in both the boating and kayaking scene. For other anglers they are regarded as a pest or a nothing fishing that isn’t worth targeting.

Wherever you stand on the species, the humble bream is arguably one of the most accessible coastal fish available to anglers. Have your ever peered over the edge of a jetty close to a fish and chip shop and seen the amount of bream just milling about waiting for a chip? For me personally, bream are not usually on my list of fish to go and target, however, when in the estuary and the fishing is slow, bream are happy to eat plastics and I find them a lot of fun on light gear.

Most of the time my standard lightweight set up is a 1-3kg rod and 1000-3000 size reel, spooled with 6-10lb braid and 10lb leader. This covers a lot of the areas that I like to fish and will handle everything from flathead to trevally, even landing the odd Jewfish when needed. Plastic and jighead selection consists of the ever faithful TT DemonZ jighead in 1/4oz 1/0, rigged with either a ZMan 2.5” Slim SwimZ or ZMan 2.5” GrubZ. If I’m being honest, this presentation is my go-to and nearly always tied on when I’m heading out.

Over the last few months, I’ve been keen to change up my approach, including presentation, rod and reel combo, braid, and leader combination, to specificatly target bream on straight through nylon monofilament line. So why the change? Last year Platypus released the Pulse Premium Mono and it got thinking that now was a good time to set myself up with a nice light combo that I could do some bait fishing with. I opted for an Okuma JAW-30 spin reel, matched up to an Okuma LRF GEN2 spin rod (2-4kg) and spooled it up with 4lb Pulse. My thought here was to chase whiting up on the flats and potentially some garfish like I did when I was a kid.

While spooling up the JAW-30 with the Pulse Mono, I could hardly believe how much line was going onto the spool. I ended up winding the full 300m spool of 4lb straight onto the reel. I guess if I’m lucky and the fish needs to run, there’s plenty of line for it! My first few sessions using bait went quite well and I landed a few of the usually suspects, including bream, whiting and flathead, just to name a few.

The one thing that stood out to me straight away was the amount of stretch in monofilament, after using braid for years, it was noticeable how much give the line had. Also, my selected rod had a lot more taper when compared to my usual soft plastic rods, in turn providing a lot more cushion in the combo for when the fish wants to run unexpectedly, minimising the risk of the 4lb snapping. All in all, this got me thinking about chasing bream and other species on plastics using straight through mono. Chasing fish on straight through mono is nothing new, bait fishos have done it for years and the tournament guys do this all the time with their artificial presentations, so for me it was purely a way to change up my presentation and approach when the fish are a little shut down.

So, onto the first real attempt at throwing my favourite ZMan soft plastics on mono. I approached an edge that had provided me with some good fish in the past. This is an edge dropping into about two metres, that is lined with weed, rocks, and mangroves, providing shelter for all sorts of bait, including like small fish and jelly prawns.

With the bait in mind, I tied on the trusty 2.5” Slim SwimZ, in Midnight Oil colour and basically imitated a small bait fish mooching around the edge. On this occasion the jighead was a TT HWS (Hidden Weight System) with the weight of the jighead concealed inside the plastic, giving it more of a horizontal fall thought the water column, rather than a nose heavy one that you find with a tradition style jighead. This is ideal for creating an extremely natural presentation and a natural dying fall.

Well, it didn’t take long to find some fish willing to play. I obviously had the drag set soft (hero drag), to allow the fish to run and the rod provided a gradual increase of pressure as it loaded up through the taper. First fish in the boat was a bream of just under 30cm, proving this super light outfit was potentially going to be a stable in my estuary kit and to my surprise the line handled the bream teeth well.

Back in the water for that dude and time to battle some more. For the rest of the available time that I had that morning, I continued to cast my Slim SwimZ in amongst the weed and structure. Slow retrieves with small twitches and pauses got the bites. I was on a time limit however I managed another three fish before having to call it quits and log on to work for the day.

Overall, I was pretty impressed with the Pulse Mono and in particular how nice it was to cast lightly weighted plastics around. No twist, excellent feel through the line and casting wise it flows off the spool flawlessly, reaching a respectable distance even when using 1/20oz jighead. I was left really impressed by the combo and you’ll definitely see more of it in the videos to come. This setup is a great option for those fishing bait, who also want to give lure fishing a go but aren’t confident running braid, while also being a genuine lure option for those looking to add another option to their kit. A simple and satisfying way to fish.

We are starting to get some good weather windows now, so I hope your finding a few fish.

Screaming Dragz, Sean

Gearing Up:

Mono Combo
Okuma LRF GEN2 Rod – LRF2-S-702L 7’ 2-4kg
Okuma JAW Spin Reel – JAW-30
Platypus Pulse Mono – 4lb

Braid Combo
TT Rods Red Belly Spin Rod – RBS701L 7’ 1-3kg
Okuma ITX Carbon Spin Reel – ITX-1000
Platypus Bionic Braid X9 – 6lb
Platypus Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader – 10lb

Lures
ZMan 2.5” Slim SwimZ
ZMan 2.5” GrubZ
TT DemonZ Jigheads – 1/4oz 1/0
TT HWS (Hidden Weight System) Jigheads – 1/20oz 1