Karla and Latisha Rickwood fished with dad Travis from Maroochy River mouth for some nice clean ocean yellow fin bream this week.

Pilot bream are finding their way into the Coast water ways 

With another cold snap expected to hit us this weekend, it should have the bream and tailor on the bite both in the rivers and off the beaches. All the rain fall in our catchments over the last few weeks has given the rivers another really good flush out and as a result quality pilot bream and school jew have been feeding throughout the lower reaches. The cool change and uncovering of vast rocky areas along our beaches and river mouths will provide much needed feeding and spawning grounds for our key winter bread and butter fish species, the yellow fin bream. 

Yellow -fin bream will be on the menu for angler over the next few months. Winter is the time when these big fish migrate to feed and spawn in coastal gutters and river mouths. In particular any rocky rubble or out crops areas will be the best places to target these fish. We have already seen good hauls over the past few weeks with a few fish up over the kilogram mark. The Mooloolah River has been firing well with really good numbers of bream around the boat moorings, La Balsa Park and the rock wall. The lower reaches of the Maroochy River, in particular the mouth is fishing well with bait during low light periods with an increase in the number of bream around 35cm last weekend. The stretch between the Pincushion and Marcoola beach has a few nice gutters scattered along its length and the tailor fisherman have been hooking pilot bream on their pilchards, what a shame. Things can only get better over the coming weeks for big bream.

Make sure that you are well prepared for the craftiness of bream. Dawn, dusk, top of the tide, overnight in the same spot and fishing structures like jetties, boat moorings, rocky areas and near the bar are all important facts to consider. Don’t get caught when your out at the Pincushion and you lose your last set of gang hooks snagged on the rocks and the blokes fishing next to you are dragging in kilo size fish. A well organised fisherman should have plenty of pre rigged gang hooks or at least a box of Mustad 4200D or 4202D saltwater series hooks to make up gangs. Tru Turn hooks in style 711 are also very useful when rigged with black crane swivels rigged in between each hook. The swivels allow the hooks to twist and set in the fish’s mouth, avoid destroying the pilchards flesh when inserting the gang hooks and help to minimise line twist. Always carry a small spool of bait mate elastic cotton in your tackle box to help lash your pilchard to the hook and avoid loosing it to tidlers. Gangs are also ideal when fishing small baitfish like whitebait, herring, frogmouth pilchards and small strips of mullet fillet.

  Get yourself a decent hook file or stone to sharpen the hooks in between fish. Most hooks are sharp new out of the box, but some even require a touch up before use. A small sure catch hook sharpening stone only cost $4.50 and is a very smart investment for any angler. A variety of different sinkers to allow for varying currents and waves heights as well as a couple of different strengths in monofilament and wire leader material are needed for adapting to changing fishing conditions. For those who wish to fish at night it would pay to have spare batteries for your head lamps or torch and some clip on glow in the light for your rod tips so that you can see the bites and what you’re doing. Be prepared for changing fishing conditions and the worst case scenario that you loosing hooks to big tailor and you should be rewarded with good fish.