Tips for Catching Bigger Bream This Spring and Summer
Day 5: Baits and Tackle for Big Bream in Brackish Water
Editor’s Note: Average fishing tactics take average-sized bream. To get the big “bulls,” you need some special tricks, no matter where you fish. Follow this advice, and your stringer will get stretched like never before.
 “You have to use seed shrimp – those tiny little shrimp that you seine-up in the eel grass at the mouths of rivers, coves and sloughs in brackish water,” the late Les Maske of Magnolia Springs, Alabama, told me. “Most of the time, those little-bitty shrimp won’t be more than 1/4-inch long. So, you must use fine hair hooks to hook them through the tail or the horn. The weight of the hook will usually carry the bait down to where the big bream lurk. The big bream are accustomed to eating the small seed shrimp. Oftentimes, when they shy-away from worms and crickets, they will latch-onto the seed shrimp.  I’ve caught some of the biggest bluegills and shellcrackers I’ve ever taken using seed shrimp. If I’m fishing a spot that I know other anglers have been angling heavily, like a boathouse, a pier or a well-known bream bed, I’ll use a really-light, limber fiberglass pole with no lead and no cork and 2-pound-test line. I’ll throw my bait out over my head to get it into the area I want to fish. Then, I just let the line sink naturally. When that bream sees that small grass shrimp swimming down, naturally he’ll attack.”
 If bigger and better bream are what you like to fish for, here are some general rules that can make your breaming better this season.
- Use lighter, less-visible line.
- Utilize smaller hooks, and try to hide them in your baits.
- Fish for the deep-water bream first.
- Bait for shellcrackers and bluegills differently.
- Employ bigger bugs with more and longer legs if you are fly-fishing.
- Refuse to use a cork or a lead, unless absolutely necessary.
- Use a clear float if you must fish with one at all.
- Try to hide from the bream.
- Take your fish off the hook, and bait-up quicker if you are in a bed of really-big bream.
- Try seed shrimp if you’re breaming in brackish water. You may be surprised at the results you’ll get.
 These breaming tactics have helped other outdoorsmen catch more and bigger bream. Try these techniques, and you may catch bream so big that only one fits in the skillet at a time.
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