avoiding small bream

[myself62]

Hi all, was out in the bris river today, armed with frozen prawns, didnt have much luck at the sunken wall or the little creek mouths. BUT, when i moved to the bris river side of the bridge at fishermans island i managed to catch more than 30 bream, even with a strong tidal flow. BUT, not one legal size although most of them were close to legal. was great fun though.

what i would like to know is how to avoid the little one because there must have been some big ones there somewhere.

I am thinking that maybe prewns only attracts littlies.

I have also discoered that if the tide is flowing strongly the bream are more agressive (at least today they were).

[bootyinblue]

Big ass hooks + big ass baits = big ass fish!

I dont know, just an idea I subscribe to. I tend to go bigger in the baits and the little stuff feeding attracts the attention of the bigger fish and whammo, hold on !!

[myself62]

what bait do you use bootyinblue?

[ellicat]

I think there's some truth to booty's call there.

A mate that went to Swains a few years back told me they were diving and watching what the fish were doing to the baits of the blokes still fishing. He said the bait would arrive on/near the bottom and all the smaller ones would come in and pick at it first and then the larger ones would swoop in and take the bait whole.

So the bigger the bait the better the chance it will outlast the pickers and give the bigger boys a chance to have their turn. All assuming there are bigger ones there)

[bootyinblue]

Depends on where I am and what i am fishing for but not uncommon to thrown in whole pilchards or bottle squid on 2 ganged hooks.

Seems to work for my for some strange reason.

[myself62]

what if i wanted to use a single hook, what bait would i need to use then?

[AlsHilux]

hey mate, this isn't so much about how to avoid small bream but it's some good knowledge.

bream school depending on their size, so if you start pulling in the little ones, it might be time to try a different spot because you'll just be casting into the same school of the same sized fish.

cheers!

[myself62]

that makes a lot of sense, but i have also heard that large bream get around singularly, would that be true?

[Troy_79]

There isn't much u can do to avoid small bream they are a agressive fish and will eat anything no matter the size. last week i caught a 17cm bream on a pilchard using gang hooks and my mate caught one which would have been about 5cm on a slab of mullet.

Bream tend to school up aswell and for some reason the schools usually contain the one size fish. so if u start catching a few bream around the 20cm mark then its likely the whole school will be around that size. I read it in some fishing book a few years ago and from my experience the book is right

[Dazzamcgee]

Theres alot of truth to every post that is written here!!

Big bait = Big fish

Smallest/hungriest eat first, Big fish tend to hang back until the feeding frenzy has started then move in.

Bream school depending on size/age. The school breaks down with age into smaller groups and so on.

So the result to avoid small bream would be??

Big Bait

[Gordo]

I had the same problem myself catching undersized bream in the brisbane river. I used bread as bait and hooked up quiet a few bream nearly all of them undersized. Probably just a school of small ones.

Post edited by: Gordo, at: 2007/06/12 13:13

[Angus]

If there are little bream youll always know about it.

Even if you use bigger baits and big hooks little bream will either pick your bait clean, or still get hooked! However using squid on a larger hook at least gives you a bit more time in which a bigger one might find its way through teh throng.

Alternatively, use lures. You will catch less, but potentially more of quality as you will be reperesting a live prey to them as opposed to a dead bait.

angus

[Oceandonkey]

Its funny i just wrote about this in another thread, by prawns from your local seafood shop (not the 24.99kg ones just the cheaper ones. They are roughly 2-3 times bigger than frozen prawns when peeled and do the trick for me, though it still get undersize fish its just a good alternative to using a pilchard or squid if your keen on using prawns.

[James W]

whiting heads....so a recent article i read said....hard to pickoff from the little ones and the bigger bream semm to like em...i have a few whiting heads in the freezer to test ti out when i can...you could ask a seafood shop if they have any heads they are gunna throw out...

[jeff f]

fishing off the rocks in the surf we allways used octopus tentacles.

they are so tough nothing can get them off the hook,little bream don't damage them but big bream slam them

[STU]

Try using plastics I very rarely catch undersize bream on them 98 of the time they are legal or very good size but if all your getting is small ones move on try somewhere else

[Cowfish13]

Out in the bay on clear and calm days, we can see different sized Bream schooling under the boat. If we have any type of sinker on, it only gets the little ones, but if you take off the sinker and ONLY use a hook, you get a legal Bream nearly every cast. This may not work in a strong current as it takes a long time to get any where near the fish.