Bushy on Bream

A happy Bushy-rod in hand and another Bream falls to the system.

I have to say that I have been amazed by the response to a couple of bream articles and a bit of competition bream spinning by Steve Starling and myself. For some reason folks seem to be very interested in catching bream and especially in catching them on artificials. By now I think that just about anyone with a vague interest in the subject has cottoned on to the fact that using small lures, fine gel-spun lines, light graphite rods, and a sneaky stop and start retrieve can improve the bream tally to scary proportions. Soft plastics have also proven to be deadly at times when used on the same high-tech tackle and armed with fine chemically sharpened hooks. I know that my own jump in bream spinning performance is not the result of any magic breakthrough but is rather the culmination of putting together a number of little advances that have added up to a fairly deadly package. I know that a lot of you are interested in the bream on lures thing so let’s have a bit of a look behind the scenes at just how some of the techniques were developed.

For a start there has to be some sort of passion or inner drive to power a search for improved fishing gear and tactics. For me the bream on lures thing is a hobby within a job. Fishing is my way of attempting to make a living but fishing for bream is my way of relaxing when I am home from writing trips or making television. It is just myself, my boat ‘Scuppers,’ some time, and a bunch of ideas. Fishing for bream has no importance at all in the human scheme of things but it puts me on the water and in touch with the weather, the tides, the fish, and it keeps my brain ticking over. Maybe it’s even a kind of meditation - enough time spent immersed in the rhythms of natural things can be an antidote to mans ever quickening mad scramble for bigger and better possessions and gadgets. My ideas and observations on bream are certainly not the only ones that work, but you are welcome to try them - if you have some success just keep enough fish for a feed and let the rest live to fight another day.

A little Halco Scorpion, suitably modified has caught me some whoppa Bream

We have to start somewhere so we might as well look at the types of lures that are effective and how we came to choose those lures. My first bream on lures were accidents and those particular fish must have been keen because they ate metal wonder wobblers cast for sea trout in the brackish water of the Mitchell River in East Gippsland. I only caught two bream on the wobblers in the one morning but that was certainly enough to get me thinking. Further accidents on lures meant for tailor and flathead convinced me that bream could be caught on lures but the common wisdom of the time was that bream just weren’t aggressive enough to make them a good target species on lures. Of course we were wrong, all that was needed was better tackle and better lures along with a confident approach. I started fishing with lures in the estuaries of southern NSW in 1967 as a kid on holiday and eventually moved up permanently. Not surprisingly the bream accidents on lures jumped up in regularity. The ANSA bug had bitten me at that stage so I used a lot of one kilo tackle. Apart from teaching me a lot about fighting fish, the old one kilo line on an eggbeater reel meant that I could cast small lures. Flathead, bass and estuary perch ate the small lures but so did an increasing number of bream. In fact in late winter and early spring, bream were about the only fish that myself and a group of fellow lure desperadoes could catch locally on a regular basis. Once we started to target the fish we started to work them out a bit and the catch rate went up even further. In the early days we used a great variety of lures and caught bream on all of them, but gradually we settled on the smallest Bill Norman and Rebel minnows on our spinning gear and larger diving lures such as Rapala Shadraps on out baitcaster tackle. Later on I used the small Tilsan floating trout minnows to good effect. These lures had a decent action and they caught flathead, bass, estuary perch, trout, and of course, bream. These lures were also just heavy enough to cast a fair distance with 2 kilo nylon line. All of these lures worked well enough and still would catch their share of fish today, but my bream fishing was just about to kick upwards and that was because I started to use a little lure called an Attack minnow.

Bream spinning takes you to some great locations, this is Gypsy Point at Mallacoota

I called in at Gerringong to torment my mate Steve Starling on a trip somewhere and we went to one of his local haunts to see if we could dig up a few bream. Steve had been raving about the little minnow for a while but I guess I was catching plenty of fish on my Tilsans so I didn’t immediately jump on the bandwagon. During that short session Steve caught more fish than I did which is fair enough, but I watched in the clear water as the bream reacted savagely to that lure and I was very, very impressed. I was so impressed that I spent actual money and bought some! This lure is a ripper, it is just on the magic size for bream and it has an action that makes fish react. We have had some of our largest bream catches on the Attack minnow. Along the way I also used and still use the Halco Scorpion in the metallic red and gold finish. I do modify this ripper little lure to make it into a floater by removing the heavy hardware on the bib and drilling a tiny hole through which I attach the line. There is a little black magic involved (and a little plastic bead) in turning the scorpion into a deadly bream lure but the results justify a little bit of modification. The scorpion is my first choice as a lure for snag fishing because its radical bib makes it wriggle on the first inch of a retrieve and also makes it climb over limbs without hooking up too often. My biggest bream was taken on a scorpion and although the lure is not perfect for my style of bream fishing as it comes out of the packet, it continues to occupy a top spot in my tackle box along with the Attack. Even the Attack has to be modified with different rings and fitted with chemically sharpened hooks before I consider it a good lure. Again the modifications to these lures were implemented because I wanted the ultimate performance as far as attracting more fish to the lure and landing more of the fish that were attracted.

Both Steve and I are always looking for an edge and we thought that the ultimate hard-bodied bream lure would be about the same size as the Attack minnow and the Scorpion, with a similar action, but with slightly better aerodynamics on the cast and slightly better hook exposure. Steve had a talk to his mate Paul Kneller and the Palaemon was born. At the present stage of development the Palaemon is often the hard-bodied lure I tie to my line first but at the rate my bream spinning is changing it could be something else next week!

The new Palaemon works vey well on Bream

The Palaemon, scorpion, and the Attack work well at a variety of depths which is a very desirable attribute for a lure to have. I hate changing lures and having one that dives if you wind it down and works the surface if that is the way you want to play it, is a big plus. When I go fishing for bream on lures I go in boots and all and I might cast non-stop for hours at a time. Changing lures unnecessarily just is not in the master plan. Every second that you waste mucking around with your tackle is one more second a fish can’t inhale your lure. If you think that this approach makes me single-minded and obsessive about my bream fishing you would be one hundred percent right! To be on the end of my line a bream lure has to cast a long way without fouling up, it has to attract attention from the fish under a wide range of conditions and it has to hook a large percentage of the fish when they eat it. All of the very best hard-bodied bream lures are floaters that slowly rise when you stop retrieving them. If you have been following the magazine articles you will know that my main bream enticing trick is to attract a fish and then to simply stop the retrieve and allow the lure to rise slowly and helplessly to the surface. For whatever reason, bream can’t stand this and they often just have to have a little snap at the lure.

I have to say that this technique took a long time to develop. Along with about a million other bream fishos I have torn my hair out when bream follow a lure and then refuse to eat it. Fishing in clear water allowed me to watch countless fish refusing all sorts of lures and eventually I started to notice that on a slow jerky retrieve a lot of the fish took the lure on the pause as it was stationary. Gradually I realised that I was leaving my lures stationary for longer periods and that more fish were eating them. Once I twigged to what was actually happening I consciously just left lures to rise until they reached the surface or got eaten by fish, once I detected a follow. The results were nothing short of miraculous. Of course nothing in fishing is ever a sure bet and every bream that follows a lure is certainly not going to swim up to that slowly rising lure and eat it, but a hell of a lot of them will!

Baitcasters will catch Bream, but the light lures certainly cast more easily on an eggbeater

Having a lure that bream will eat is one thing but you still have to deliver that lure to where the fish are and you have to fight the fish successfully when you hook up. Nylon line had some serious shortcomings for me as far as bream spinning was concerned. To cast light lures I needed lines with a very thin diameter but when I used thin enough nylon to cast well, it was not strong enough to land fish consistently around oyster leases or in snag piles. Also using thin nylon line on modern eggbeater reels with large diameter bail rollers, I encountered heaps of line twist. I tried various gel spun lines but the one that I like most for bream spinning is Berkly Fireline in grey 4 pound breaking strain. This stuff is very hard to break on a straight pull ( it breaks well over the 4 pound mark) it casts lures a mile, it doesn’t seem to twist when normal wobbling lures are used, and once I used it for a while I noticed that my hook-up rates improved. As an added bonus I suspect that you can impart more action to a wobbling bream lure by manipulating your rod tip because of the non-stretch nature of the line. I had a line problem, I looked for an answer, and now I don’t have a problem any more. I am not knocking any other gel spun lines and they may well do a good job, I just prefer the Fireline for this particular fishing application.

I now fit all my lures with chemically sharpened Daiichi red hooks. Again this was in response to a perceived problem - bream have tough mouths full of teeth and my hook-up rate with normal hooks was unsatisfactory. The chemically sharpened hooks are thin, ultra-sharp and tough enough to do the job, although sometimes they get a bit bent in the gob of a big old bream. I make all the hooks barbless by bending down the barbs with a pair of pliers because they go in better, they take less time to get out of fish, my boat carpet, and occasionally me. On the same note, when I am fishing soft plastics I make my own jig heads by bending Mustad Aberdeen hooks to shape and adding various sized split shot to them. The Aberdeens are tough, thin and they have a really small barb and a beautiful round bend that hangs on to fish brilliantly. I regard good hooks as absolutely vital if you want to maximise your bream results.

At 44cm, this Bream really worked over the light graphite rod and the four pound Fireline - as happens most times, the gear won out in the end.

The rods I use for bream are mostly light graphite ones because I often cast continuously for long periods and they need to have a bit of authority in the butt to fish the gel spun line to its capacity once a fish is hooked. Rods from five and a half feet to six and a half feet seem to suit my style of fishing the best. Again trial and error guided me to these rod selections. Heavy rods were out because they tired me quickly and soft rods just didn’t impart the right wriggle to the lure when I manipulated the rod tip and they often let strong bream reach the sanctuary of oyster covered rocks or snags when I tried to put the stoppers on. I use some rods direct from the Shimano range and the very best ones I use for bream are Ian Miller custom jobs.

Reels are also vital to the Bushy system of bream fishing. All of my big catches have been taken on eggbeater reels rather than on baitcasters. The reason is that the eggbeater can cast the tiny lures I favour long distances. I fish in very clear water a lot and I know that casting a small lure far enough to reach bream that are completely unaware of my presence is the absolute key to success in taking large numbers of fish in a session. The baitcaster is fine for casting larger lures and for fishing in water with a bit of colour in it but in the clear water, the eggbeater is king. I use Shimano Stella and Sustain reels and they have performed faultlessly for me over a long period of time. These reels are expensive but if you really worked out how much fun they deliver over how many hours or years, then they provide a very cheap form of entertainment.

Even the by-catch is worth bragging about. I just love those Estuary Perch

I like to use some form of leader between my mainline and my lure for various reasons. Where other major predators are likely to form a bycatch I like a leader heavier than my mainline. Large flathead, mangrove jacks, and giant trevally often eat lures meant for bream and heavier leaders give you a chance to land these fish. In very clear water or where there is little likelihood of encountering major predators I go down to leaders as light as six pound Stren Magnathin. I generally tie on twelve pound Magnathin as a first choice and play it by ear as a session develops. If I get monstered by bigger, meaner, fish than bream, I go up in leader strength and diameter and if the water is clear and the bream are fussy I go down in leader size. Again the Magna thin is great but I am sure that similar lines would make acceptable leaders. I guess the Magna thin got my final nod of approval because of its toughness. I have rasped the hell out of it on oyster rocks, snags and flathead mouths and it has come up trumps just about every time. If something thinner and tougher shows up I will use that.

Another nice Bream caught on by Bushy's techniques.

I suppose that the single biggest aid to my bream experiments has been my Polarising glasses. I use Stalkers in the bright tan eliminator lense and they allow me to really see what is going on. Watching the bream that haven’t eaten my lures has taught me a lot more than anything else. There is a lot of crap talked about glasses - some are good and some aren’t. Not to put too fine a point on it my economic survival depends on whether I can catch fish and seeing them first is vital. The stalkers are a great colour, the lenses are very clear and the frames are more or less unbreakable. I had considerable input in designing these glasses and I am proud to work in a consultancy capacity for the company. If you need good glasses buy some of these so I can earn a bit more petrol money to go fishing!

The other big asset in my bream on lures quest has been my boat and electric motor set up. I use an Ally Craft 4.1 Metre boat set up with a flat floor and casting platforms fore and aft. The main power plant is a Yamaha 25 key start motor that hasn’t missed a beat in six years and I am currently using a Minn Kota Maxim 44 Cable steer electric, which is fantastic. If you don’t have an electric motor you can forget about catching really large numbers of bream on lures. It is that important. The cable steer motor leaves both hands for free for continuous fishing and it is tough and precise. There are points for and against tiller steered electric motors and auto pilot models and I can see myself buying into plenty of arguments with my opinions on this particular subject, but basically if you are serious about your bream spinning, tiller steers and auto pilots aren’t worth a wank. Real men have cable steered electric motors! Okay, put down your guns, maybe the other motors are worth a very small wank. If you want a bit of backup on that ask Brett Thomson. Sorry ‘Tommo’ you might as well be in the poo as well. I could pussy foot around but I suspect that if you have read this far you want the real story and I honestly believe I am right on this one. .

Anyway an electric motor gives the kind of quiet control that makes all the difference in the world to bream spinning. After years of using oars, paddles and tiller steer electric motors I really didn’t make significant breakthroughs in bream spinning until I bought my first Minn Kota AT 36 cable steer. That motor was still going strong after five years of hell until I replaced it, but it was kind of rusty and a few non-essential bits had fallen off! If the new one lasts that long and gives me equally good service I will be ecstatic.

Scuppers, my little Ally-craft is a ripper bream boat, you can launch it anywhere and it floats on nothing!

The actual boat is fantastic for bream spinning because it is just big enough to get me home if crappy winds spring up in an open estuary but it floats in very little water and is super easy to manoever around leases and snags. I owe a lot to my boat as far as spinning for bream goes and I am amazed that I don’t see more of them around. Mine has been bashed to death and so far it is still going strong. Maybe they are too good and too cheap, or maybe Ally Craft just haven’t got the dollars to buy lots of magazine hype. Anyway I love my boat and it has caught me too many bream.

Well that is probably about all I can think of for the present and I hope it gives you something to think about. Space prevents me from raving on even further but there is enough involved in bream on lures to write a book. Actually Steve and I have done just that - well, I have finished my bit and he is still dragging the chain. If he gets his act together the book should be out soon. Please buy one because I need the money to work less and fish more. It is amazing that I have now written something on the ‘net’ because I am a practising luddite and I am not even connected yet, or maybe ever. This is somewhat of an experiment so I hope you have had a bit of fun reading a bit of background on a topic that has certainly generated more interest than I ever thought it would.

See you on the water Bushy.

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