Learning Bream Fishing

I don’t know about that area, but generally around rivers in the south it’s best to fish when water levels are low. If it’s high, the fish have a lot more area to go and spread out. So harder to locate and have great days.

I don’t know what you mean by shallow water but 6-10 ft is not abnormal.

It’s very normal around me for 2 guys to bream fish and move through an area to cover ground until they find them.

Fish generally are going to be lazy. They don’t want to fight the current all day. They like to sit in still water next to an area where water pushes food by them. So hide down current behind a stump on a slough with moving water as an example.

Depending on what they are feeding on and other conditions is the depth. Sometimes you just have to change. Crickets and worms can sometimes work on top water, sometimes 1 ft down, and sometimes you want to fish them on the bottom. I know that doesn’t help but talking to guys at the boat ramp, local fishing report, or just changing it up all work to figure it out.

You going to be in a boat or bank fishing?

Bream are fairly predictable once you know what to look for.

They are bait fish (sort of) so they are going to nearly always be near cover, shallow water. That's a decent start, find structure in shallow water, docks are another good spot.

Once you can locate beds you can really have some fun during spawns. Sometimes they like worms, sometimes they like crickets.

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Trying to learn to catch Bream on my own. Never had a Dad around to teach me. Planning to go to Upper Amite and Tickfaw/Blood rivers. I realize that Bream are mostly shallow water, around cover like stumps and cypress. Planning to use crickets. Would they be mostly around outer or inner bends of the river? Any other tips would be appreciated.

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Catching bream is about as easy as fishing gets. Catching big bream is a totally different scenario. 12 oz and over bream are as wiley as just about anything that swims. Luckily in the south we have lots of big bream so its not as hard in our area.

The outer bends of rivers tend to be shallower and the current tends to be faster while the inner bend tends to be deeper and slower and have more cover. When rivers flood they scour the outside bend and wash what cover there is to the next couple of inside bends. This isn't always so but it is almost always so. If you look at a river or creek on google maps or earth you will notice sand bars and beaches on the outside bends and not as many on the inside. I fish a lot of slow moving black water rivers and there is a night and day difference between the inner and outer bend....for all species. Its a lot easier for a fish to hang in cover and ambush prey in slower water. The same thing applies to anything that slows the current down. We have wing dams on the Savannah River and some of those on the outside bend have DEEP pockets of water downstream of the pilings from the eddy's created and those holes are very good places to fish.

A 4-6 pound UL spinning rod and reel, a split shot, bobber, #6 long shank hook and cricket box full of crickets is a perfect way to have a helluva good time. Almost any dock or access to almost any body of water in the south will be a good place to catch bream....but big ones may be scarce. They may be present but the smaller ones are aggressive and may get caught before the more selective big ones have a chance.

1. Find them on bed.
2. Drop hook and worm in bed.
3. Set the hook.
4. Repeat.

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Live crickets frustrate the hell out of me because they are so soft and fall off the hook easily.
Gulp Alive makes artificial crickets that are soft but stay hooked and you can catch multiple fish off of one bait. Small hook with a tiny split shot weight and just let it sink. Big bluegills may be spooked by bobbers.

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Personally I like a red worm (no red wigglers, too small to cast without some weight) on about a # 6 long shank hook with no weight and no bobber...we have a lot of BIG shellcrackers in my area....1 pound shellcrackers are kind of average....and they chow on red worms tossed out and allowed to sink and fall almost naturally. Its not catch and release fishing because the hook will be almost shat out of them by the time you feel them....I mean they engulf a worm fished that way. Its also EASY to skip under bushes and docks and bass and catfish will also chow on them. The down side is small bream also chow on them and will eat a bunch of worms in a day of fishing BUT they usually chew on them without knocking them off the hook giving the time for any bigger fish in the area to run and and engulf what ever is left on the hook. Georgia Jumpers and pink worms or about 1/3 of a nightcrawler will work the same way. Just a hook and a worm....I sometimes use a spinning rod on a 9' flyrod to fish this way....it flat works.

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Live crickets frustrate the hell out of me because they are so soft and fall off the hook easily.
Gulp Alive makes artificial crickets that are soft but stay hooked and you can catch multiple fish off of one bait. Small hook with a tiny split shot weight and just let it sink. Big bluegills may be spooked by bobbers.

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Back in the day I was a serious big bream fisherman LOL. Seriously big bream are as hard to catch as any more attractive fresh or saltwater game fish. In the south we discount this because we are blessed with a shite ton full of hand sized bream which are easy to catch but bream pushing 12 and 14 ounces are like shooting massive deer...they ain't running up and eating bread balls tossed to them...

One of my more successful tactics was to buy crickets a few days before I needed them and slicing up a potato in the cage with them. In 36 hours those damned grey crickets would be the size of cave crickets, those nasty big bastard crickets with the freakishly long legs that live in your crawlspace. Those grey crickets would have a belly on them to size of you middle finger LOL. This allowed me to flat line those frickers. Hook them through the head and thread them on a hook. Toss them out with nothing but them and the hook....no weight. Those fat bastards plop into the water just like any bug falling out of the sky or off a tree...and immediately start heading for the hill making a helluva fuss on the surface in the process. Big Bream can't resist it. You don't even have to find the bream....you can chum them with those fat assed crickets. Toss 3-4 out, wait until a bream busts them and then start tossing them out with hooks iin them....even when they knock most of the cricket off the hook and not get the hook they will not knock the crickets head off the hook and they almost always swing around and engulf that last tiny little morsal 'cause they are greedy bastards. If a blue gill weighed 50 pounds they'd be the most sought after gamefish in the world and they'd whip about 2/3s of the grown men who messed around and hooked one...

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My favorite fishing is for bluegill and shell crackers (red ear, chinkapin, lake runner, whatever you call them).

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Mine too. Nothing like floating a black water river with spanish moss draped trees catching big ole titty bream on a rod and reel, cane pole, fly rod....hell even a hand line LOL.....it is about as much fun as a man can have with his britches on!

Buy a telescopic bream pole, light line, porcupine quill cork, small split shot, small bream hook, cricket cage and fish basket. Drop the cricket into cover, dock, tree top and hang on!

AUTHOR-Thanks everyone for taking the time to respond….

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I always use #8 long shank aberdeen hooks because they’ll catch the small bream along with the big ones.

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I also use the aberdeen because I'm convinced the shinyness of the hook gets their attention, particularly in murky water, then they see the bait and instinctively take it.

Same with crappie (sacs) but I will upsize to the #6 with live minnows.

But I haven't used long shank, only regular shank.