Shoot’n, Fish’n ‘n’ Hunt’n

Finesse, soft plastic lure-fishing for Bream:

This article is about lure-fishing, with diminutive soft plastic lures, for yellowfin bream on the NSW coast of Australia. However, there are many different members of the bream family, worldwide, and so the techniques used here can be copied, or adapted, to fish for bream anywhere that they are found. In some parts of the world, however, you might need to upgrade the tackle that you use as some members of the bream family are bigger than others. For example, one member of this family, which is widespread throughout the Indian Ocean (Acanthopagrus berda), can grow considerably larger than the species (Acanthopagrus australis) talked about in this article. Obviously, if you encountered one of these larger bream, in African or Indian waters, then the chances are that the tackle, described below, will be a little on the light side.

                                 Yellowfin bream (Acanthopagrus australis)

Lures:

When lure fishing for bream you can use a wide range of lures, from small hard-bodies, through to small vibes and a wide range of soft plastic lures. This article will concentrate on the use of diminutive, i.e. very small, soft plastic lures. I am talking about soft plastic lures about 25mm (1″) in length and this can include small crayfish and prawn patterns as well as small curl tails. To accommodate such small lures you also have to scale down your jig weight and hook size. Weights around 1.5 grams (1/20 oz) will work well with these tiny soft plastic lures and will help to fool even the most wary bream.

Rods:

You can use any quality 2.1 metre (7’) 1-3kg or 2-4kg spin stick. There are a lot of really good rods from makers such as Shimano, Diawa, Loomis, Pflueger, Berkley and the list goes on. One point, I would like to make, is that you do not need to spend a fortune on a bream rod. True, the better quality rods usually do cost more, but I bought a cheap 2.1m, 1-3kg rod off Ebay because it was so cheap that I thought that it was worth the risk and would do as a ‘loaner’ rod. However, it turned out to be such a good rod that I now use it all the time for bream and all of my other diminutive lure fishing. Indeed, this ‘cheapie’ has become a favourite of mine.

Reels:

You can use any quality 1500 to 2500 size threadline reel from either Daiwa, Shimano, ABU, Pflueger and so on and so forth. My personal choice is for Daiwa as I just feel that Daiwa make better threadlines (to be fair, I think that Shimano make better baitcasters!). Again, you can spend big money on a reel but it is questionable whether the hundreds of dollars spent on a top of the range reel gets you any real (please excuse the pun) and tangible advantages over the middle range reels. For the price of a top-of-the-range outfit, you can buy a second middle-range rod and reel so that you have a backup outfit ready to go when you are on a hot bite and you have a problem with rod and reel that you are fishing with that, if it was your only outfit, would prevent you fishing on. Or, you can spend all of those dollars you saved on lots of soft plastic lures so you have a huge range at your disposal – which, I believe, is a better use of scarce dollars!

Line:

My preference is to use a 2 to 3kg (4-8lb) quality braid. Look for a braid that has a very small diameter and is very, very supple. The small diameter and suppleness will allow your diminutive lure to sink and move more naturally in the water. These qualities also make the line less susceptible to wind and current effects.

I like a bright coloured braid, orange or chartreuse, so you can see what your line is doing. Often, by watching your line, you can see if a fish has taken your lure even though you may have not felt the take – bream can be very sneaky buggers! Also, the bright colour helps when casting and the wind takes the slack line towards a snag – if you can see this happening, you can quickly correct your cast before you end up in the ‘trees’, which is something you can’t do if the line is hard to see. There are heaps of advantages of bright coloured lines over hard-to-see lines.

Leader:

To compensate for the brightly coloured braid, you need a long length of near invisible trace-line. I always used a fluorocarbon leader and Berkley Vanish seems as good as any and at a reasonable price. A long trace, at least the length of the rod, of 3 to 4kg (6 or 8lb) trace seems to work well. Attach the leader to the braided line with a proven braid-to-mono knot and the long trace will fly through the runners of your rod without any problems. I used to always use the improved Albright knot but this knot does work loose, over a long fishing session, so if you use it make sure you re-tie your knots regularly.

Seasons:

Bream can be caught year round with the finesse, soft plastic lure technique. What does alter, with the season, is where you catch them and the size of the fish you encounter. In summer, the spawning fish are about and so you can catch medium size fish in most places but particularly towards the mouth of the rivers and bays. In winter, the fish move upstream and so you need to move further up the rivers to find them. However, the fish that you will find up the rivers, at that time of year, are likely to be bigger fish and well worth the effort.

Where to use this technique?

Normally around snags and structure; rock walls, bridge pylons, jetty pylons, moored  boats, oyster leases are all prime bream spots and so these are the sorts of places you particularly want to target. However, this technique will also work on sand and mud flats and around weed-beds. When used on sand flats and around weed beds, there is a high chance of flathead and whiting as by-catches.

By-Catch:

Bream are the main target but flathead, whiting, trevally and chopper tailor are also quite likely by-catches, although the choppers will simply destroy your soft plastic lures and can become a real nuisance when they are about. Other oddities are possible, as almost any fish will have a go at a tiny soft plastic lure. I have taken the odd leatherjacket and luderick, using this technique, and there is always the danger of a school jewie taking your soft plastic which will make for a very exciting time! If fishing well up a river system, you also have the chance of bass and estuary perch. Using finesse techniques, in locations like the Gold Coast, includes the risk of being wasted, on such light tackle, by mangrove jack but that is how fishing often goes.

Technique:

The big secret with lure-fishing for bream is to make your retrieve dead slow! Most people fail, when targeting bream on lures, because their retrieve is too fast. What the fisherman/woman must realise is that bream will regularly take a completely stationary lure! So there is no such thing as a retrieve that is too slow, when targeting bream.

My preference for a bream lure is to go to the smallest plastics you can buy. Previously, Berkley made a 1” Hawg, which is a sort of yabby/prawn/shrimp ‘thingie’ and when rigged on a TT Tournament 1/20oz jig head, these were deadly on bream. Unfortunately, for reasons that make no sense to me, Berkley has dropped the 1” size from their range. I have a modest stock-pile of these lures but am looking for a similar replacement as I work through my stocks. Atomic also had a similar lure, the 1.5” Baby Craw, but they have also dropped this from their range – obviously these Yank companies need to do some bream fishing so they know what they should be making for us Aussies. Alternatively, Starlo and Bushy need to try some of these diminutive plastics and add something similar to the Squidgy range.

This image shows the relative size of the 1″ Hawg compared to a 1/20oz TT jig head and an Australian 20 cent piece.

While on the subject of the hooks, I use the TT Tournament range of jig heads which use Gamakatsu hooks. I avoid the TT Head Hunter range, with Mustard hooks, because, oddly, these particular Mustard hooks are NOT sharp enough. However, whatever brand of jig head you choose, make sure the hooks are super sharp.

The best way to test a hook is to draw the tip over your thumb nail. If it will skate across the surface of your nail, even if it leaves a furrow, it is NOT sharp enough. A truly sharp hook will want to dig into your nail and you cannot draw it across the surface. I test every packet of hooks/jig heads I buy because one of the biggest reasons for missing fish is because the hooks are not sharp. Very few hooks are sharp enough out of the packet and this is where cheap hooks are false economy because they are NEVER sharp enough. If your hooks have normal, non-chemically sharpened, points then you can sharpen them before use. However, if you are using chemically sharpened hooks you cannot re-sharpen them so you must test them before you buy them. You can read more about testing hooks in the article “The Importance of Hook Sharpness”.

Having specified the 1” Hawg as the premium bream lure (in my humble opinion) and as they are no longer available, I will also mention some other small lures that work on bream. The Squidgy Wrigglers, the Pro-Range Critters and the Pro-Range Lobby, all in the 50mm range (and only because they don’t make them smaller) will all do the trick on bream. In the Atomic range, the 50mm Prong Atomic Guzzlers, should also be a good bream lure. The Berkley 1.5” Gulp Alive Jigging Grub should also be a winner and Berkley also have a 1” MicroPower Nymph which seems to be the substitute for the 1” Hawgs, but I have not seen these available in Australia, yet. In reality, the choice of the lure is not as critical as the retrieve you use. Almost any small plastic, under 50mm and preferably close to 25mm, will work on bream provided you present it correctly.

So how do we present these diminutive lures? The answer is that we cast the lure as close to the bream-attracting structure as we can. In the case of rocks, oyster leases and bridge pylons, the distance short of the structure, where we aim to put the lure, will have to be moderated by the amount of weed and other debris present that might snag us up – but we want to be as close as we can get. In the case of moored boats, we actually aim to hit the side of the boat, right at the water line, and this often means casting sideways in order to get under the curvature of the boat’s hull. With aiming at the side of boats, even though you will not do any damage with such a small lure, make sure the owner is not onboard as, repeated hits on the hull, may invoke a most unpleasant response. It is odd, but some boat owners do not appreciate the thud of lures bouncing off their hull, nor the importance of putting your lure into the right spot. Some of them don’t even fish – so what is the point of owning a boat if you don’t fish? …..philistines!

Once we have cast the lure into the right spot, we now let the lure sink directly down the side of the structure, or directly below the boat and some aim-off may be necessary to compensate for the current. While the lure is sinking, keep a very keen eye on the line looking for any sign of fish activity on the drop; as bream will often take the lure as it sinks.

If there is no take on the drop then you point the rod tip at the water’s surface and wind up the slack, ever so gently, and then lift the rod tip very, very slowly and, at the same time, give the rod tip a series of tiny, little shakes – this should be more like vibrations than outright shakes. This gets all the arms and legs of the Hawg (or similar plastic lure) waving like mad as if the lure is shouting to the bream “over here, eat me!” It is also a good idea to pause, regularly, during this slow retrieve as bream seem to be unable to resist a ‘target’ that suddenly stops dead and waits.

When the rod tip gets to around 45^o from the horizontal (you don’t want to take the tip too high and have no room to strike and, also, where you will be likely to put too acute a bend in your graphite rod and risk breakage), you drop the tip down to the water level and, again, wind up the slack and repeat the process until your lure is either back at the rod or out of the strike zone.

Step by step demonstration of how to use diminutive soft plastic lures for bream.

However, be careful judging the strike zone because sometimes a bream will follow the lure out from the structure and wait until the right moment, often when you have hesitated in the retrieve, to hit the lure. They will sometimes, if not convinced to take the lure, follow it right back to the rod tip. If you see a bream following your lure then the best thing to do is slow down, or even stop, your retrieve because you are obviously going too fast and that is why he is following and not striking.

Using this lure-fishing technique is very, very effective on bream but you must be ready for a wide range of takes. Sometimes bream will just slam the lure and you are immediately ‘on’. At other times, the take will be incredibly subtle, so subtle that you cannot feel the fish but are simply aware that the lure doesn’t feel ‘right’ or you may see the line move independently of the current or your retrieve, and lifting the rod tip may just set the hook. Sometimes, you will wind in without feeling anything only to find your plastic lure pulled down into the hook’s gape, a sure sign that a bream had hold of your lure at sometime during your retrieve, and a good reminder of how sneaky these fish can be!

One thing I haven’t addressed is lure colours. During the day, fishing with the Hawgs, we found that the Pumpkinseed colour was the best but the Smoke Clear colour also worked well. However, when fishing into the dark, any colour/pattern that includes the colour red seems to be a better performer. With the Squidgies, Bloodworm, Wasabi and Flash Prawn are all good colours with the Red Rum being a good possibility for low light fishing. The Killer Tomato colour would have also been a good one, but they seem to have dropped this colour from the Squidgie range, as well.

So that is my take on one of the best ways to target bream with soft plastic lures. If you are new to fishing, and yet to catch a bream on a lure, then I hope that some of the information, I have included here, will be of help. Indeed, I had targeted bream with lures for a very long time, without success, until a fishing buddy showed me this technique and, on the first day that I tried it, I didn’t just catch a bream or two, but around 15 using the diminutive soft plastic technique – at which point I was ‘hooked’ on tiny soft plastics!

Good fishing to you all!

Shown here is a nice fish taken using finesse tactics and soft plastic lures. This fish was taken from the Parramatta River (Sydney) where we exercise catch and release due to the health issues of eating fish from this region.

Copyright © 2018 – Robert Pretty – Shoot’n Fish’n ‘n’ Hunt’n.