need help!

[gadaletaaj]

I have been fishing for bream on lures for ages now and I am really having trouble catching some. I have spent ten sessions in the swan alone, approx 40 hours fishing time and still have not caught a bream on lure.

on one occasion I walked ten kilometres or more from riverside drive to the brewery and back again, following the schools of bream, and yet I still did not catch anything. I don't have a boat and am too young to fish in a comp.

my friend keeps telling me to switch to bait as it is a lot easier, and disses all lure fishos. I have a stella 6'6 spin and an abu garcia 1000 with 6lb braid. everyone says keeep perservering but it just seems all to hard. what should I do?

[fishcatcher]

isnt your reel an abu cardinal 1000

[Stu_000]

Ten sessions? Chicken feed! It took me 2 months fishing 2-3 times a week to land my first bream on sp's. Keep going it will come dude.

[Shane]

I know your pain...

About this time last year is when I started luring, and got my first fish on a orgee down near the brewery. I got a couple more that week and then had like a 9 month dry period, and I fish generally twice a week.

As with all these pleads I would suggest hooking up with someone. Isn't there a group of people hitting the canning on a regular basis now? Your more than welcome to tag along with me, just don't expect to catch fish . Or if you have the cash jump in a comp.

...Cheers

Shane

[fishcatcher]

i hav fished the same as gadaletaj and hooked up once but busted off on a pyllon

[chris_lemess]

Fishcatcher - the Cardinal is made by Abu Garcia.

Gadaletaaj - suggest you practise lures on some other fish. Try fishing for flathead as well. Bream aren't hard once you've got the hang of it but your general fishing abilities with lures need to be good (in most circumstances - some people hit it lucky).

There seems to be hundreds of people now jumping into bream luring and they haven't even caught bream on bait! It's a hell of a lot easier to progress instead of jumping in at the deep end. Personally I fished with bait for a couple of years for every river fish there is, used a few lures on and off, started catching stacks of flatties and flounder, caught herring / tailor on slices (bit of variety is good) and learnt my way slowly into lure fishing. Bream may be worshipped on thise site but they're still essentially a fish. You need to know how to fish reasonably well, especially to catch them regularly on lures.

Don't expect results straight away. It takes time to become one of the proverbial 10%.

cheers

Chris

[Muzz]

Bream are definetly not an easy fish to catch, I bought a boat in Oct 03, and have been fishin at least once a week since then.
I have caught 5 bream in total since then. 1 in the Collie on a SP in December 03 and 4 on HB last Saturday morning at Murray bend near Ravenswood. I like you where beginning to wonder if I was ever going to hook one. The best things in life don"t come easy, just perservere and dont try too hard. The best thing about fiishing is you just never know what the next cast will bring. You can learn a lot from reading these forums, I have. good luck, keep tryin.

[Magic]

Ditto everyone else's advice of keep trying. I started trying to catch bream on sp's around April/May last year and got lucky by catching one on the first outing. I kept heading out every weekend and finally managed to nail my second one on sp's only last week.

[yellow door 1]

I started with the soft plastic 4 weeks ago so I'm not claiming to know everything there is and this might not work for everyone but it has worked for me

Go down and catch some bait with a shrimp net from the areas you fish, put them in a bucket and watch them swim. Then use that as a starting point to base your retrieves on. Mimic the size, colour and action with your soft plastic adding some pauses and erratic behavior to imitate a wounded one. Sticking your hand in the bucket will give you an idea of how they move when being threatened.

You can also pick up heaps from just watching the bait in the shallows. Certain retrieves work better in different spots because they are feeding on different prey. If you know whats in the water where you fish, it will be much easier to make the right choice

I reckon you've got to study breams prey before you can imitate it properly.

P.S. It cant be said often enough - get out there with someone who knows what they're doing and watch them very closely

[gadaletaaj]

problem is I don't know anyone with a boat!

[Shane]

The difference in fishing from a boat and from the shore is that in a boat you can generally put yourself in the optimal position to catch fish. ie on a bridge pylon, up wind, and so on. But the theory is the same on the water and on the shore.

Just hook up with someone who shore bashs, generally a shout out saying I am fishing this day/time/position and someone generally pipes up to come along. Fishing alone is fun, but it is always better when fished with a mate I find.

At the moment I generally fish in the arvo's around Belmont, your more than welcome to come along. Or do a tinny slut shout out and see if someone will take you out in their boat. On a regular basis I see guys breamin by themselves in boats, you know who you are , and would more than likely like the company/cost share.

[Davo28]

You can also pick up heaps from just watching the bait in the shallows.

thats what lure fishing is all about... trying to mimick the baitfish and seeing for yourself how the baitfish move around is a vital key.

Dont give up mate, it happens to all of us.... oneday you might kill the pig and then nothin for a month... welcome to bream fishin!

[yellow door 1]

There's plenty of bream accessable from the shore. Big bream love the intertidal zone as thats where alot of there food lives. Its a freaken Bream buffet in there. The problem is, that being shore based your almost too close to the action. Spooking them before you can get a cast in happens all the time. They are already on high alert when in the shallows at high tide but the good news is there are usually feeding when in this area.

Got to stand well back from the edge and use cover like trees and other land based stuctures to your advantage. I remember reading something about Bushy behaving like a "wax dummy" when fishing the shallows. I reckon theres a bit to be learnt from the way fly fishers take so much care to avoid being seen.

Before I got the polaroids I used to stand right on the edge and wave my arms around like a goon. Even after being told not to, I just wanted to see if the bream were chasing the lure. I'd still get hits but no bigguns. I was writing areas off for only holding small bream.

After walking up to the same area with polaroids I noticed a procession of 35cm+ peeling out of the shallows like a mexican wave before I had even cast a lure. The little ones hang around but the big fellas slink off into the channel never to be seen again.

No more standing on the edge for me. "Stealth up" your approach to land base fishing and you have a better chance of pulling your lure past a decent bream. Tread lightly, keep movement to a minimum and dont discount the skinny water. Heaps of the sp fishing I'm now doing involves dragging my lure no more than 10cm out from vertical retaining walls in 4ft of water at high tide. The fish have their heads buried in the weed and barnacle which grow on the wall so you have to drag it past their noses to get a reaction. You've got to be very stealthy and remain unseen and heard for this technique to work.

What I've written may not relate particularly well to your area but if you can find a retaining wall with an over hang - a rock bank covered in weed, barnacles and mussel - sloping towards some pylons covered with the same - a deeper channel out past the last pylon - with a drain close by. Give it a crack. Thats a brief description of my current hotspot

The more fish producing features you can put together in the one place the better your chances are. The mouths of drains are hotspots in the Yarra. Even the tiniest outlet will flush worms, insects and other creepy crawlys out into the main river and the bream line up to scoff their dinner from the conveyor belt. Unfortunately heaps of other junk floats down, which makes the choice to fish catch and release even easier when you get them at the front of a storm water drain or anywhere else in the Yarra for that matter.

[fishcatcher]

i have found a great spot but if u want to find where it is u will have to pm me and come for a fish (if u r land based)u need sp's as hb's dont get down far enough you can see the bream in the shallows and u cast out just behind them and bang