Fish Fact File, Bream

Due to heavy rain and major flooding all waterways have been highly affected, damaged and polluted so I decided to make fish fact files to help other anglers catch what they are after. This goes to show fishing never stops, catching them may do but when worst comes to worst do what you can to help your angling skills as well as fellow anglers thrive.

FISH NAME: Bream (QLD)

COMMON NAMES: Pikey bream, black bream, costal bream

DESCRIPTION:  

Bream found in the surf have brilliant silver scales almost like a mirror, bright yellow on their fins and a faint black outline on their tails. Bream found in Upper River and estuary systems have a deeper yellow on their fins and long with their scales being less mirror like they have a somewhat olive colour along their back.

FEEDING/HABBITS:

Bream can be very timid and sensitive to noise and light and can have very delicate feeding patterns. Bream can feed on a wide range of food depending on their habitat they can eat yabbies (nippers), prawns, works and baitfish. Bream larger than one kilogram will attack mullet and larger baitfish like herrings. These heavy hitting fish feed around snags, shelters and other forms of structures like bombies or mangrove roots and generally bream will only feed in shaded areas or areas of low visibility.

SIZES:

Rare examples of bream grow to 4 kilograms however most bream are caught at 200 grams to just over one kilogram and some cases close to two kilograms. Bream spawn in July to August in Queensland and April to May in New South Wales.

HABITAT:

Bream can be found in most areas with any form of structure food and shade. This can be for example fallen trees or bombies or sand flat gutters just to name a few. Bream stick to the shade most times of the day and swim in schools as little as ten to well into the hundreds. Bream tend to swim in schools of simular sized fish so if you find a good area full of nice sized bream keep it to yourself because good breaming spots spread like wildfire through word of mouth.

FISHING TECHNIQUES;

BAIT:

Live baiting is best done for bream with a 2500 sized reel and a 2 metre fibre glass spin rod combo, match that with two to four kilo braid or mono and you will be right. Use good quality leader that won’t break from sharp things like barnacles because bream are strong fighters and head straight for snags. Bream like well-presented bait so make sure you do so if you aren’t using live bait. The best live bait is live prawns, yabbies or little white bait. If you are using dead/frozen bait, fish strips frozen prawns and blood worm works well.

SOFT PLASTIC:

The best outfit for breaming with soft plastics is a 1-3 kilo graphite spin rod 1.8 to 2.2 metres in length depending on your retrieve and where you fish, the shorter ones are better for kayaks. A good quality 2000 to 2500 sized reel should be used and make sure the weight of the reel feels good on your chosen rod. The reel needs to be spooled with braid; I prefer 2.7 kilo braid because I use this outfit for other fishing too. Fluoro carbon leader is a must. Onto the lures, stick baits, curl tail minnow and curl tail grubs have proven very effective on large bream. The colours of these should be natural like pumpkin seed and watermelon. Prawn look alike including the gulp shrimp work well and the yabbie look alike storm lure works like dynamite. Remember to match the soft plastic to the area like prawns on weed beds, yabbies on yabbie flats and so on.

HARD BODIES:

Bream swim in shallow waters so surface and sub-surface lures are the go for most areas. Slow sinking bibles lures also get good hook up rates, once again where you are will depend on size style and colour. I could think of no better lure then a Sebile crankster 35 mr it has a great rattle and awesomely effective swim style. Some other great lures for bream are the Sebile splasher 52 and a Sebile flat shad su (suspending). Any one of these lures should catch you your bag limit of fish but remember the best type of fishing is catch and release, save the fish for future trips and protect the delicate ecosystems.