Tips for catching big bream? (And other fish)

[TheFishyFisherman]

Hello fishraiders. Just wondering how to catch really big bream and other species. My biggest bream was 30 cm on the dot but I feel like I could do better since everyone else on fishraider has a PB of 40+ cm bream. Does anyone have any useful tips I can use? I’m currently fishing Mosman wharf cuz there are a lot of big bream around the pylons. Any help would be appreciated.

Also, am I allowed to fish near this spot? It looks very fishy but it’s really close the the ferry stop so I fished around it when I went there

 

Edited June 1 by TheFishyFisherman

[DerekD]

Yes you are allowed to fish that spot. There are signs on the posts on the actual wharf advising that fishing is permitted and how to keep the area open for fishing in the future. Basically don't make a mess, be respectful of other users of the facilities, remember it is a ferry wharf for ferries and the passengers so give them priority, clean up after.

I fish it fairly often and if there is a mess down there (made by others) I clean it up.

[dirvin21]

Big bream are smart, they are very old fish

Light leader and really well presented lures or baits

[Steve0]

If fishing daylight hours, try tossing your bait beneath the wharf (near a pylon if you can land a bait there). Your choice:  sit and wait for fish to find your bait or to work the structure (try your bait near a pylon for a few minutes; try another for a few minutes, etc).

It's not a screaming drag fishing method. Bream will head for the timber when hooked, so don't fish light, don't give line and get them out fast. Put some thought into where you are relative to the pylon you are fishing and that you may need to change the angle of retrieve to keep fish away from structure during the fight. 

Not my video and from underneath rather than the top, but it may give you an idea of what you may be in for with a fish on the line. 

     

[DerekD]

When you can, also get into the topwater fishing. It is the tail end of our topwater season (my preference is October to late April) but there are still good fish to be caught. In the winter months these techniques used with a Sugapen can be effective in the main harbour with the schools of salmon and tailor but you are at risk of losing some lures.

Start with this one:

There are several of us that are addicted to this form of fishing and several others that I have managed to also get into this style of fishing. This was one such gentleman:

And one of my own reports and I've had several sessions where I've picked up more than one bream or whiting over the 30cm mark

In my article on getting your first light lure outfit there is a whole section on hardbody and topwater lure fishing further down the post:

 

Edited June 1 by DerekD

[TheFishyFisherman]

12 hours ago, DerekD said:

Yes you are allowed to fish that spot. There are signs on the posts on the actual wharf advising that fishing is permitted and how to keep the area open for fishing in the future. Basically don't make a mess, be respectful of other users of the facilities, remember it is a ferry wharf for ferries and the passengers so give them priority, clean up after.

I fish it fairly often and if there is a mess down there (made by others) I clean it up.

Wow thanks!! What a responsible person you are!!! 😄

[TheFishyFisherman]

Also, how would I distract the toad fish and baby bream that are on the surface? Should I just burley with bread and then drop down? I like using light lines, with a pea sized split shot and a small hook

[TheFishyFisherman]

Would these diving minnows work? Cuz they’re about the only topwater lures I have (they were really cheap!) If so, what colour would be better?

Edited June 2 by TheFishyFisherman

[dirvin21]

1 hour ago, TheFishyFisherman said:

Would these diving minnows work? Cuz they’re about the only topwater lures I have (they were really cheap!) If so, what colour would be better?

Either colour is ok, bream can be very fussy with harbodies especially if they don't swim perfectly 

Think outside the box, fish areas everyone else walks past, pieces of shallow oyster rock and reef that's exposed ar low tide, in 30-40cm of water you can work a shallow hardbody or surface lure, the fish are there to feed some of my biggest bream have come from areas like this

Try either a crab imitation lure like a cranka crab or gather actual small crabs and float them down jetty pylons the idea is to cast as close as possible and let it sink on slack line imitating a dislodged crab this is a great technique for those wise urban jetty bream

Big bream love mangroves again before I had a boat and kayak I'd walk public pathways and parks at high tide and cast hardbodies and poppers amongst mangroves in 30cm of water 

In the shallows a twitching retrieve seems to work best

Funny haven't done this type of fishing for ages but after sitting here writing about it, I'm going to do some

Cheers

Dave 

[TheFishyFisherman]

Ok thanks. I’ll see how much the crab lures are

[TheFishyFisherman]

I went for a session today but the water was murky due to last nights rain so I couldn’t locate any of the fish. I casted near the pylons underneath the ferry stop but only caught little bream, snapper and a whiting. 😂 Hoping to try again soon when the water quality is better. 

[campr]

Big bream are much more predatory.   Most of my big bream were caught on live bait such as herring, poddies and best of all small black crabs.  Nippers are great as well however can be frustrating to use if there are a lot of small fish about.  Ron 

[TheFishyFisherman]

Thanks. Would live baiting small poddies at Clontarf be effective? Also, where are the sand flats located? Would like to start fishing topwater for bream and whiting too. Also, what season is best for using topwater lures and what type should I use? 

[DerekD]

11 hours ago, TheFishyFisherman said:

Wow thanks!! What a responsible person you are!!! 😄

I try. It was the way my parents raised me. My first living memories are in that suburb. I went to two schools there and still spend a lot of my spare time there. I care about the place and make an effort to leave it better than I found it whenever I can.

[ireallylovefishies22]

29 minutes ago, TheFishyFisherman said:

Thanks. Would live baiting small poddies at Clontarf be effective? Also, where are the sand flats located? Would like to start fishing topwater for bream and whiting too. Also, what season is best for using topwater lures and what type should I use? 

the sand flats beneath the cafe hold plenty of poddies. summer is prime time for surface and using lures such as the sugapen or splash prawn will be good.

[44jeff]

 Sometimes the difference between say 4lb and 6lb leader is very important. Once one fish second guesses a bait, the other fish can switch off, so it pays to have a very natural presentation. And bream have sharp eyesight, so fishing stealthily is important - it helps if they don't see you or a rod

Edited June 2 by 44jeff

[TheFishyFisherman]

10 hours ago, ireallylovefishies22 said:

the sand flats beneath the cafe hold plenty of poddies. summer is prime time for surface and using lures such as the sugapen or splash prawn will be good.

ok. I’ll wait for summer then 👍

[Little_Flatty]

10 minutes ago, TheFishyFisherman said:

ok. I’ll wait for summer then 👍

I was still getting topwater hits as of this weekend gone by. Not sure how much longer this will last though, this is my first season of focusing mainly on topwater.

[noelm]

Big Bream around jetties and so on can be very tricky, to be successful consistently requires some stealth, light line and very early morning starts, or late afternoon. Most fish around public wharves and the like see hundreds of hooks a day, most with an old black Prawn and 20lb line, they got big, because they are smart…..you just have to be smarter! Lures will often be the best option, because they will keep the Toads and stuff away, and if you can cast to the jetty (as distinct from on the jetty) your chances seem to be much better, but, you will lose lures, if you’re not, then your not casting close enough! Be patient and work out what works and what doesn’t. I personally think that places away from jetties are way better, they might be harder to access, but the results will be better, just because you can see fish doesn’t mean they will take a bait.

[Green Hornet]

Google “Docklands Bream” although this is black bream fishing and in Melbourne, the techniques are identical for yellowfin.

These guys are the gurus when it comes to stealth and urban breaming with lures around the pylons.

[sashkello]

All good advice above. But what it comes down to is that when there is plenty of bream about, you want to filter out the smaller ones. So, if you are OK with not catching smaller fish and ONLY want to catch bigger ones, then you'll have to be ready to accept that sometimes there isn't anything above 30cm where you are casting and might end up with nothing. So yeah, bigger or "scarier" (i.e., crabs) lures, surface lures, and maybe live bait. Any kind of dead bait like chicken or prawns will simply get pulled apart by swarming smaller fishes, so you'll be going through same-old routine of hooking/unhooking 20cm randoms and throwing them back until you maybe get lucky. Saying that, the biggest bream I've caught was on a BIG live yabby with scary claws. I reckon most fish I've caught on yabbies was of decent size, but that maybe because the ones which failed to get hooked were smaller ones pulling 'em off the hook...

[GoldenHourFishing]

• Light leader 6lb or below
• Light jigheads 1/16 or below in a size #2
• Small plastics 3inch or below, a 2.5 grub is readily available from all tackle stores
• Cast at structure
• Blades and small vibes are also effective at this time of year but they are snag magnets and more expensive to replace

Here is my bream playlist, there is multiple 40+ cm captures throughout the playlist, I got a 43cm on my kayak the other day but havent released the video yet. You can definitley catch bream on heavier gear but to maximize your chances, lighter presentations on lighter gear is preffered. Hope it helps

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLijcRMwq9OMOH9HW2JjN4UAOUoBtITxEg&si=qXejttFcjn4yXBUv

 

 

[TheFishyFisherman]

7 hours ago, sashkello said:

All good advice above. But what it comes down to is that when there is plenty of bream about, you want to filter out the smaller ones. So, if you are OK with not catching smaller fish and ONLY want to catch bigger ones, then you'll have to be ready to accept that sometimes there isn't anything above 30cm where you are casting and might end up with nothing. So yeah, bigger or "scarier" (i.e., crabs) lures, surface lures, and maybe live bait. Any kind of dead bait like chicken or prawns will simply get pulled apart by swarming smaller fishes, so you'll be going through same-old routine of hooking/unhooking 20cm randoms and throwing them back until you maybe get lucky. Saying that, the biggest bream I've caught was on a BIG live yabby with scary claws. I reckon most fish I've caught on yabbies was of decent size, but that maybe because the ones which failed to get hooked were smaller ones pulling 'em off the hook...

Would soft plastics work if they at right underneath me? Don’t have the time to go buy new gear at the moment

[TheFishyFisherman]

7 hours ago, sashkello said:

All good advice above. But what it comes down to is that when there is plenty of bream about, you want to filter out the smaller ones. So, if you are OK with not catching smaller fish and ONLY want to catch bigger ones, then you'll have to be ready to accept that sometimes there isn't anything above 30cm where you are casting and might end up with nothing. So yeah, bigger or "scarier" (i.e., crabs) lures, surface lures, and maybe live bait. Any kind of dead bait like chicken or prawns will simply get pulled apart by swarming smaller fishes, so you'll be going through same-old routine of hooking/unhooking 20cm randoms and throwing them back until you maybe get lucky. Saying that, the biggest bream I've caught was on a BIG live yabby with scary claws. I reckon most fish I've caught on yabbies was of decent size, but that maybe because the ones which failed to get hooked were smaller ones pulling 'em off the hook...

Would live prawns work or would the little fish also rip them apart? I’m not good at catching mullet and the yakkas I get at balmoral are not small enough. Also, cranks crabs are expensive too.

[Peter KH]

If your on a pontoon and they are under you, are you talking about they are visibly swimming past, or are they feeding and splashing on the surface. If you can see them, they are obviously hungry and on the prowl to find food, otherwise they won't be in the open. Try to make a cast that causes a gentle splash/sploosh, if your firing big sinkers or jigheads it will just scare them off, use lighter gear.