With a few days break from tying flies, I figured a venture north to the Mid North Coast of NSW to target bream around the oyster racks was in order. The area chosen boast both fixed and floating racks, which present varying challenges in their own rights.

I prefer coloured water for bream, so the back areas of the system were chosen. Rain and wind blew through, making the challenge of throwing flies even greater than usual. To add another dimension to the challenge, we chose to fish 4 weight outfits. I’m really enjoying the 4 weigh for this style of angling: approaching the structures with the electric motor and presenting shrimp flies in sizes 6 and 8as delicately as possible against the floating pipes or down the leading faces of the fixed racks.

A dedicated floating fly line (designed for short casting, where accuracy is vital) was selected and rigged on both outfits. Leaders varied in length as they always will, as did the breaking strains.

It’s important to fish what you are comfortable with to achieve the result of the fish eating the fly. The length of leader we built for subsurface shrimp flies was 7ft — a simple construction of 16lb fluorocarbon, stepped down to either 9lb or 6lb depending on the intensity of the ‘eat’. In clear waters, leaders do need to be longer and of a finer diameter to successfully convert fish.

The sessions got real when topwater foam flies were being thrown across the tops of fixed racks on the high tide. When this happens, the action is usually aggressive with powerful eats, and as the angler, your response must be unforgiving. Give an inch and you’re done: lost fly, leader shredded and wasted time rigging again. Your hook set needs to be solid, as does your speed in getting the rod tip high in the air to clear the razor sharp edges of the oysters so you can pull the fish away from the structure. A second angler on board assists, driving the electric motor away in the process — its a complete team effort to successfully escort the bream in to the net.

After reading this, I’m sure that you get the leaders are not dainty. 16lb straight through fluorocarbon was the go, starting at 5ft and getting all the way down to 21/2 feet total length with re-rigging, bust-offs, etc. Below this length, the bite stopped and we couldn’t convince the bream to eat until new sections of 5ft were rigged and we started again. The experience was thoroughly exhilarating, especially given the limitations of our gear!

Bream are one of my favourite estuary species. They are the real deal when it comes to shrewd and worthy fly targets.

~ Brett Clarke
(extracted and reposted with Brett’s permission)