For an anyone to successfully target bream in the estuaries, he or she needs to be able to recognise and
distinguish what are the physical features that are found in the estuary systems and how they will influence the
behaviour of bream. So what I am going to do is give you a brief outline of what I feel you need to look out for in
the estuary system when chasing bream and what type of TT jig heads I prefer to use when chasing bream
with soft plastics.
Sand flats can be one of the most productive types of fishing grounds in an estuary system, and if you are
prepared to put in the hard yards you will reap the benefits that they have on offer. Sand flats hold a myriad of
sea life; crabs, worms, nippers and other marine organisms all of which inturn will attract the baitfish and
predators alike. Bream can be found patrolling over these sand flats during the higher parts of the tide, only to
move off them as the tide is to low for them. There is a small township just south of Ulladulla called Burrill
Lakes, where I have been fishing for bream over the shallow sand and weed beds with soft plastics. It is here I
have seen the backs of the bream out of the water as they chase prawns over the sand flats.
When chasing bream over sand flats I will tend to use either a stick bait or worm type soft plastic. The type of
head will either be a 1/40 or 1/28 HWS jig head or a 1/20 or 1/16 once, 1/0 Tournament Series jig head. If
using the HWS jig head I will have my rod (Pflueger Trion PTSP AB 4770 1LFT rod, mounted with a Pflueger
Medalist 6030 spinning reel that is spooled with 3 GSP line) tip well above my head and shake the tip of the
rod while at the same time turning the handle slowly of the reel. If a fish takes the soft plastic I will gentle load
up the rod, allowing the fish to take it away while still under pressure. On the other hand when I am fishing
with the 1/20 or 1/16 once, 1/0 Tournament Series jig head I will use a flicking motion of rod tip to skip or hop
the soft plastic over the sandy bottom.
Weed and seagrass beds are also found in every one of the estuary systems that I have fished in throughout
Australia. They are the vital link in the life of an estuary and if you have never fished in and around weed and
seagrass beds you will be amazed at how much does go on there. You can find these weed and seagrass
beds on the top or at edges of sand flats, drop offs, holes and at the edges of some mangrove systems.
Bream will forage for food over and around the edges of these weed and sea grass beds.
The Port Hacking, which is situated on the southern side of Sydney, has an area that at low tide the top of the
seagrass beds are floating on the top of the water, and as the tide rises these seagrass beds will become
covered with water once again. It is during this time that the bream will move out of the deeper water on the
fringes of this mass of seagrass beds and starts to forage for food. This is the time when you start to work your
soft plastics either across the top of the water or just above to tops of the weed bed. This is where a stick bait
like the Berkley Bass Minnow or Ecoproducts Eyeballs that have been fitted onto a 1/40 or 1/28 HWS jig head
comes into their own.
An Ecoproducts red eyeball rigged on a 1/40 An Ecoproducts red eyeball rigged on a 1/20
HWS jig head Tournament Series jig head.
Now drop offs can be found on the top and edges of sand flats, mangroves, rocky outcrops and bars. These
drops offs can be so small that the untrained eye will not pick them up and they can be as deep as the
estuary is itself. Bream will work their way along the edge of these drops waiting for any unsuspecting morsal
may be washed or swim over the drop off as the tide recedes.
Just recently I fished with Daniel Bray in the Pro Bream comp in the Hawkesbury River and throughout most of
the two days that we fished we concentrated on rocks walls in the Berowra Waters area. During the top of the
tide we found that the bream were holding up in amongst the rocks that where right up against the shore line
and are casts had to be directed in that area to get any response from the bream. We found that as the tide fell
the bream would move down the faces of the drop offs and into the deeper water.
This meant that we had to constantly change the type and weight of our jigs heads so that we could work our
way down the drop off.
This pair of yellowfin bream were caught by the author
while fishing a drop-off in deep water.
Mangroves have a number of very important jobs to perform in the estuary systems. They help hold the banks
of the rivers and creeks together, especially during times of floods; they produce nutrients, act as nurseries
and give cover for small and large fish. When casing bream around the edges of mangroves you could use the
same types of plastics and jig heads as you would when you are targeting bream over the sand flats or weed
and seagrass beds.
A rock bar can consist of piles of rocks that run out from the shoreline at any angle and will have some tidal
current that passing over it. This water movement will erode or deposit the sand on either side of this bar,
making it a place that you can fish on either the run-up or run-out tide looking out for any unsuspecting meal.
Bream are one of the many fish species that just love to hang around rock bars and outcrops in search of their
next meal. It is also a place that they can hole up in if there has been a severe change in the weather pattern or
there is a flood in progress. You will find that if you fish from a boat you can have a bit more flexibility than if you
are fishing from the shore. Rock bars can be fished the same way that you would fish a drop off, by working
your soft plastic down the face of the rock bar until you reach the bottom. The trick here is to correctly select the
correct weight of your jig head so that you don’t become snagged. This may mean that you will have to change
the weight of your jig head a number of times as the speed of the current decreases or increases.
Drains or run-offs can either be natural or man made and depending on what part of Australia you are fishing
in you will using find that, as the last bit of water is receding off either the mud or sand flat there will be bream
waiting to ambush any morsal that is coming with it.
Many fish species love to live in and around fallen trees, one of which is the bream. They will use these snags
to look for a feed or for protection from larger predators. You can either anchor within casting distance of the
snag or cast your weighted soft plastics into the snag. The only disadvantage with anchoring is that if you get
a big run from a larger fish you will usually find yourself getting busted off. But I suppose that you could always
upgrade your line class.
Drifting pass in a boat would have to be my prefer option, as I can use my electric motor to steer away any of
the bigger fish from going into the snag and finding freedom.
Oyster leases can come in the form of man made structures that are either vertical poles, fixed tables or
floating racks to which an oyster will either attract itself to it or be lay on top of. The other type of lease is a
natural one where the oysters will float along with the current until it attaches itself to a rock. Bream can’t resist
a feed of oysters so you will find them hanging around the leases at various times of the tide.
When fishing them at high tide I prefer to motor over the top of the fixed tables and work the soft plastics in the
top layer of the water column. The 1/40 or 1/28 HWS jig head that has been fitted with a stick bait like the
Berkley Bass Minnow or Ecoproducts Eyeballs can be used for this type of fishing. Or you may find that the
bream are working the area in between the racks and you will need to change your jig head to either a 1/20,
1/16, 1/12 or a 1/8 once Tournament Series jig head. Try are aim your cast so that the weight soft plastics
lands as close to the edge of the racks as possible. Some times you will get a hit as the soft plastic falls to the
bottom, so be ready. Other times the bream won’t take any liking to it until you have either slowly lifted it or
twitch it off the bottom.
Daniel Bray is using his electric motor to guide himself through
the middle of the oyster racks. The boat is positioned so that both
the boater and non-boater can get in a cast to the edge of the racks.
When fishing the oyster racks at low tide and during the
middle of the day, your casts need to land as close to the
edge of the racks as possible without getting snagged.
Bridge pylons come in all shapes and sizes, and it is these different shapes and sizes that will help form a
series of eddies that you will find when fishing these types of structures. You will also find that these eddies
will scour out the bottom to either form a hole that can range from a very deep sandy hole or a slight
depression. The scouring effect that these eddies and big tides can move objects along the river bottom to
form a reef that may extend out from the base of the bridge pylon.
It is around these holes, depressions or reefs that the baitfish will seek shelter from their larger predators. For
example prawns, crabs and many other small morsels will use the structure of the bridge and what grows on
or around it to hide from the likes of bream which will feed around the base of a bridge pylon or along the sides
of the pylons. Due to the fact that there are many different types on shapes of bridge pylons you will need to
work out which technique is better for each bridge. The Captain Cook Bridge at the entrance to the Georges
River in Sydney is well renowned for its bream fishing during the autumn months. The only thing I would
suggest when fishing here is to concentrate your time and effort to the very early or late parts of the day or fish
during the week, as it does have a lot of boat traffic.
Another bridges that comes to mind are the Rail Bridge in the Hawkesbury River just north of Sydney,
Foster/Tuncurry, Newcastle Harbour and the Tweed river bridge.
Bream just love to hang around navigation buoys or markers. This is mainly due to the fact that baitfish will
hang out in the eddies that are formed from the water that is flowing past it. I have found that to successfully f
fish navigation and markers buoys you could just cast your weighted soft plastic next to it and then allow it to
slowly sink down beside the marker. If the bream doesn’t take it on the way down you could leave it for a while
and then either twitch the tip of the rod or slowly lift it off the bottom. If this doesn’t work you could always try a
slow and erratic retrieve back towards the boat.
Targeting bream that will feed underneath floating pontoon can be carried out during any parts of the tide. All
you need is to have some water underneath them and sometimes this is not much at all. The main way that I
fish for bream around them is to motor up slowly with my electric motor and cast the weight or not weighted
soft plastics on the up current side and work them back to you.
When targeting bream with soft plastics around moored boats the ideal situation is not to have too much wind.
This will give you plenty of time to put out a few cast at each of the boats as you drift past them with the aid of
your electric motor. Not only do the boats themselves attract the fish, so do the mooring ropes and chains. It is
the growth that forms on the ropes and chains that inturn will attract the baitfish, which in turn attracts the larger
predators.
Okay, there you have it. A few simple ways for you to try out those new Tackle Tactics jig heads. Hopefully,
what I have done is give you a few techniques that you may not have used before or created a burning desire to
get out there are target bream on soft plastics while using the Tackle Tactics jig heads.
