Bream Fishing
All About Bream Fishing
There’s no question that catching a big fish is exciting, but bream fishing has its own rewards. Bream refers to the fish in the sunfish family, which includes many small fish such as pumpkinseed fish, bluegills, redbreasts and redears. These are the kinds of fish most people had so much fun catching when they were kids.
You certainly do not need any expensive equipment to catch bream. You can use an old bamboo pole or one of those new lightweight, six-foot poles you can often get for $9.99 with a reel and even a little tackle thrown in. Worms and nightcrawlers are the food of choice for bream fishing. Dangle your worm in the water and it won’t take long to have some type of sunfish nibbling on it. They are stronger than they look so use a ten pound line.
Pieces of worm are very effective as bait. A bobber is also used to help you know when you have a bite. You can catch bream with nightcrawlers, normal size worms, meal worms, crickets, wax worms and other kinds of bait of this nature. In fact, bream don’t even care if the bait is real--they will chase and attack all types of small lures as well. Try out tiny grubs, jigs, and spinners and use little hooks, such as #6, #8 or #10.
Either a lightweight spinning reel or spincast reel are the best for catching common types of bream. Most of these fish are six to eight inches long and weigh in the one to two pound range. The biggest bluegill ever recorded was four pounds and twelve ounces. Fly fishing equipment will work as well with a bunch of poppers. Once you have found a spot where you are getting bites--stick around. There is sure to be a large group in the area and it can make for good day of bream fishing.
Bream can be found in just about every type of water in North America. In fact, they tend to take over in small lakes where there is only a limited amount of food. For the most part they like to live in shallow waters and are abundant in the summer when temperatures are in the 65 to 80 degree range. They are considered nuisance fish by many anglers seeking other fish, such as trout or bass. They might be small but they can be delicious pan fried.
One of the most sought after fish in the bream or sunfish family is the redear. They look much like a pumpkinfish but they do not have any blue on their cheeks. This fish is one of the larger sunfish and can weigh over four pounds. In fact, the world record was set in South Carolina with a five pound, seven ounce redear. The redear sunfish is particularly favored as a catch in southern states like Florida, North and South Carolina, Mississippi and Texas. They are also locally known as stumpknockers or shellcrackers.