Bream fishing tips

Like posted above, crickets are money with panfish. I like using 1/32oz tube jigs with the tails trimmed at the hook bend. Chartreuse and black or black and pink tend to be my favorites. They can be jigged off the bottom along canals, bridge pylons, stumps, fallen trees, piers or an open hole amongst lily pads.

Don’t overthink it. Get a small hook and a bobber on some 4-6lb test. Use worms or crickets and have some patience.

I’m a worm man and cork. They will tear them up. Smallest pole works the best I find.

Cricket on a #8 eagle claw light wire or aberdeen j-hook under a 2 inch (or smaller) slotted/pegged styrofoam bobber, 4 or 6 pound test, ultralight spinning reel on ultralight rod. I stick with 4# in water where I'm not likely to accidentally hook into something bigger, 6# in water where there's a decent chance I might hook something bigger. I generally pinch down the barb for faster unhooking. Almost never lose a fish.

Also, it's not always easy as people pass if off to be. Some days they won't bite anything. You can put a cricket or a worm right on their nose and they won't bite.

Bluegill typically bed around the full moon when water temps are above 70. In some places in Florida than means they bed year round, in some places up north they may only spawn once or twice a year. When they are bedding, and you know where the beds are, that can be the quickest way to load up. Outside of the spawn, just fish any kind of structure, docks, trees, rocks.

For shellcracker, aka redeared sunfish, aka whatever Louisiana calls them, they frequent the same areas as bluegill but stay lower in the water column. Target these by fishing the worm, catalpa worm, or cricket on the bottom, and you'll lose some hooks this way.

All of the above is for pond/lake fishing.

For river and creek fishing, I use panther martin inline spinners in the 1/32 size, experiment with color combos. Redbreasts really like them "dressed" which has the hair on the treble hook. Again, I'll pinch the barbs down on these for easier unhooking. I generally find great numbers of small bream species when river and creek fishing but lakes and ponds tend to have more size. That said, I haven't fished the Satilla but I've read enough GON articles about it, it's on the bucket list.

Fish deep. The bigger ones are deeper.

Use a slip cork so you can cast with your hook set deep.

Bream is easy. Crickets or worms.

Crickets are probably your best bait, they hard to get in my area so I get worms.

I like to fish them with a 6-7 medium light spinning rod spooled with 15-20lb baid. Mustad no. 6 O'Shounesy* extra strong hook, clam shell weight, and a slip bobber. Put the weight about 4" above the hook

I've been fishing for bream lately and can maybe hobble together some videos for a full youtube.

To be honest, you can catch them on worms basically any day, all day, anywhere that there's structure.

But if you like ultralight like I do, I've been throwing a variety of free lined jigs on 1/16" crappie jigheads, niko helgramite ned rigged, and panfish magnet under a cork.

I'll try to get a decent video edited though. It's been really fun learning this technique.

I grew up brim fishing with a cane pole and crickets. Now I love to fly fish for brim. Bets popping bugs work great. Use the smaller ones.