Bream fishing 101

Summer is winding down, but it’s about this time of year when bream usually make one last bedding run and become by the far the most plentiful fish and easiest to catch — or at least to get to “nibble”.

You don’t even need a boat in many lakes. You can fish off the bank, a pier or a boathouse. And summer is the time to do it. Almost every area body of water has bream in it. We have all kinds of bream in our region. Bluegills. Chinquapins. Sunfish. Warmouth (goggle-eye). And all kinds of hybrids. Plus, you’ll likely catch a bonus catfish or two in the same spots.

Here are 10 simple tips for finding and catching more bream.

1. For beginners, fish somewhere shallow. Fishing in four feet of water or less helps your chances of locating fish. Starting out around a bank is a good bet. Look for stained water – not too clear or not muddy.
2. If you are taking kids fishing, this is by far the best way to fish. Use small spincast rigs or short cane poles for the kids to handle easily. Catching bream if fun, and much better than playing a video game.
3. Use small hooks, small weights and small corks. A bream has a small mouth. Small corks also offer less resistance when you get a bite so the fish are less likely to know you are on the other end of that line.
4. Look for trees, brushtops or grass beds to find bream. Fish around the open edges of the structure the just keep working areas until you get a few bites. Lake D’Arbonne has quite a few sandy or gravel beds along the banks. Those are good spots, too.
5. The easiest baits to use are crickets. Worms come in second and actually produce more bites, but they are messy. Canadian cold worms, catalpa worms, Meal worms, small spinners, even artificial fish bites, kernel corn or small bits of a hot dog will catch feeding bream. My grandpa often said that if the bream were really biting, you could just spit on your hook and catch one!
6. And speaking of tip No. 5 — do spit on your bait. No kidding. Hey, it works. I don’t know why.
7. Always, always, always, make sure the point of your hook is covered up by the bait. That seems to make a difference with the fish, especially bigger ones. When your cork moves, don’t set the hook too soon. Give them a second to “take it”.
8. The one exception to that may be fishing with a red wiggler. You can hook it in the middle of the worm and that will let both ends of the worm…well, wiggle.
9. Bream bed up several times a year. When you catch one good one, stay there in the exact same place and keep trying to make sure you don’t leave a bed behind. Sometimes a bedding area no larger than the size of a washtub can hold dozens of bream. If you aren’t getting a bite, don’t stay long. Move to a new spot.
10. Go fishing. Never seen a bream caught yet that just swam up and jumped in the cooler.