I have mentioned before how much I look forward to my Bream fishing, the fine weather and flat seas compliment the hard fighting, colourful fish well and can signal the start of ‘proper boat fishing’. However with the wind not doing what its supposed to, combined with the wettest drought on record, the Bream’in has suffered a bit of a false start this year for me which is frustrating. However with a ton of lures and techniques to try using both LRF and HRF this year we are determined to make the most of what time the weather allows us to get out and yesterday (6/5/12) was an opportunity to do just that.
To say the weather was against us is putting it mildly, the wind would swing the boat around in all directions making even bait fishing difficult. Losing tackle is part and parcel in all kinds of fishing but it was getting silly let alone expensive to keep donating stuff to the reef so I concentrated on HRF in an attempt to keep in-touch with the sea bed and lose less tackle. In the meantime one of the bait rods had managed to stay still long enough to take a Bream and at 2lbish it was the first on our boat this year and gave us a bit of confidence a couple of hours in to the day that at least the Bream were around. This followed with a couple more again on bait and all of a sudden the three of us on board did not feel quite as wet and windswept as we had before.
I kept at lure fishing for the time being, the tide was running just nicely enough to take a 10-12 gram drop-shot rig away from the boat slowly enough to keep in touch with while at the same time allowing me to cover a bit of ground to tease my Ecogearaqua Bream Prawn 40 hopefully for a waiting Bream to find. Pout were very taken with the lures and some of the bigger fish give a good impression of a Bream for a second or two but not what I was after. An aggressive, small Ballan put my heart in my mouth for a short time as the sharp erratic takes reminded me of our lure caught Bream of last year, but again not the intended species.
Several more Pout and a few follows from a Garfish or two later I felt the take I was after, very sharp snatches followed by a brief moment of slack line signaled a Bream and with no real finesse I waited for the rod to load up and set the hook. The fish tore away as only a Bream can and several runs later it was ready for the net, my first bream of the year and on a lure, I was very pleased.
Nothing beats a colourful Bream.
Adam grabbed a couple of photos of my Hearty Rise rod getting beaten up by a Bream, the horizon line will tell you just how bumpy it got for a while!
And when Ad was not being camera-boy he was getting in on the act, this I think proves that its not all about scented lures for Bream. A Madness derived Mother Worm lure in white rigged Texas style got hit hard by this fish and as all Bream do, pulled like a train.
So what did we learn? Well sometimes I have to concede defeat when it comes to LRF, I always LRF when I can and caught everything but Bream doing it yesterday but sometimes circumstances mean I have to move up to HRF and I guess it’s all about presentation of a lure and as far as the Bream fishing goes HRF just worked better yesterday, I have a suspicion though that LRF will have its Bream day eventually.
The Ecogearaqua Bream prawn do indeed catch Bream as well as lots of other species and I will be using them again but we have had Bream on Power Isome, Reins grub-tails, Mother Worms and now Bream Prawns and I know other anglers that have caught on a variety of different lures so the code to crack the Bream is a wide and varied one. Here is the Ecogear lures should you want to try something similar, I am not sure if they are widely available but if enough folk ask after them you never know.
Sometimes though a days fishing becomes all about one fish and Pete was fishing hard on the bait, only briefly getting distracted by a bit of LRF and paid off with a terrific Bream taken on Squid strip that weighed 4lb 5oz. This fish is only bettered on our boat by a 5lb plus Bream again caught by Pete a few years ago.
A cracking fish amongst lots of fish caught and given the weather we certainly made the best of it. Cannot wait though throw some more lures at those Bream though, its really exciting fishing and something that can be done in conjunction with bait fishing, its not a one or the other situation but as in most of my fishing if it is caught on lure for me its just bit more special.