Dark side
Classification
Animalia (animals) > Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes) > Sparidae (porgies) > Acanthopagrus
In the Acanthopagrus family we have quite a few members in Australian waters.
From both a commercial and recreational fishing point of view the main members of the Acanthopagrus family are the yellowtail bream, the pikey bream and the black bream as described below.
Yellowfin bream (A.australis)
Yellowfin bream bream have silver to bronze bodies and the lower fins are yellow to white.
Yellowfin bream are well dispersed along our coast line from Townsville to Victoria and they are predominantly found in estuary systems and in close coastal waters including harbors and rocky reefs and coastal saline lakes. The size of bream you find in these locations very much relates to their breeding cycle.
Spawning occurs during winter in sandy beach areas close to estuary systems and the tiny fry (less than 1cm) quickly move up into the estuary systems that will be their home until they reach maturity at about 5 years and reach around 22cm in length.
Maximum size is around 50cm. Once mature all male fish spawn.
The habitats that young bream and adult bream share in estuary systems include natural environments consisting of weed beds, the edges of mangrove banks, flooded mangroves, trees that hang over water, submerged vegetation, sandy and muddy areas, rocky reefs, shorelines, and rock bars. Additionally, there are man-made environments such as rock walls, bridge pylons, jetties, pontoons, bridges, and areas under anchored boats, and so on.
After spawning, not all mature fish come back to estuaries. Instead, some of them spread out to nearby coastal waters such as harbors, coastal rock bars, and saline lakes. The larger fish, in particular, travel much farther than when they were young, favoring the same types of habitats they did as juveniles but with a greater focus on rocky shores, reefs, and walls made of rock. As fish age, they tend to prefer deeper water.
Pikey bream (A.Pacificus)
Pikey bream are sometimes mistakenly called black bream which is a completely different southern waters species.
The pikey bream breeding cycle is similar to yellow fin bream but both juvenile and mature fish favour much rougher muddy/sandy terrain than silver bream and spend a lot more time in deeper water than yellowfin bream. Maximum size is around 27cm.
Black bream (A.butcheri)
Black Bream are one of the most important recreational and commercial species in the estuaries of southern Australia particularly Western Australia. They are endemic to Australia, and are well dispersed throughout our southern waters from Shark Bay in Western Australia to Ulladulla in New South Wales, as well as Tasmania.
They grow to about 60 cm and 4 kg and are often confused with the yellowfin bream as their range overlaps. The yellowfin bream has whitish-yellow ventral and anal fins, as opposed to the black bream, which has greyish-brown/black ventral and anal fins. Yellowfin bream and the pikey bream both lack the characteristic dark spot at the base of the pectoral fin.
Black bream have a silver/olive brown upper body with brown/black fins and complete their whole lifecycle within an estuary and can cope with salinity and temperature changes that would kill many other species. As hardy as they are, they are still ultimately reliant on healthy rivers and estuaries for their survival.
Black bream almost never leave the estuary. This has led to genetically distinct populations within each estuary.
They cope well with salinity changes from freshwater to ‘hypersaline’ (highly salty) water. Juvenile bream tend to inhabit shallower waters. The preferred adult habitat includes overhanging banks among the branches of dead trees, found in the bottom of deep pools in most rivers in WA.
In late summer and early autumn, after the spawning period (when sperm and eggs are released into the water), black bream juveniles and adults are common in the upper estuary. They are often flushed downstream with the first rains in late autumn.
In open estuaries, adults are sometimes flushed out to sea after very heavy rain, but usually return to the estuary.
Although a hardy species, black bream can be seriously affected by poor water quality. In many estuaries, reduced river flow and increased nutrient run-off have adverse effects. These factors can cause harmful algal blooms and hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen in the water) in summer, resulting in fish kills.
On the south coast, where many estuaries are closed by sand bars in summer, low river flow and high rates of evaporation can cause estuaries to become extremely hyper saline, again resulting in fish kills.
Lifecycle
Unlike many other estuarine species, black bream don’t migrate to the ocean to spawn.
They typically spawn in spring or summer, at the boundary of the salt wedge (where freshwater from the river runs over a ‘wedge’ of denser saltwater from the ocean). At this time, the salt wedge is typically located in the upper estuary.
As rudimentary hermaphrodites, black bream have both immature ovaries and testes when young, but will turn either male or female before their first spawning.)
Females release tens of thousands of eggs in several batches during the spawning season. However, many eggs and larvae won’t survive to become mature fish. As they grow, females produce more eggs. Really big females may produce more than six million eggs per year.
The larvae hatch from the free-floating eggs after 2.5 days. After about four weeks, the larvae are about 10 mm in length. They then develop into juveniles and settle to the bottom of the estuary.
Lifecycle
All members of the Acanthopagrus (bream) family and in particular Yellow Tail and Pikey bream are relatively slow growing species and it doesn’t matter where they are located in Australia, by the time they reach their mature size, which can vary from habitat to habitat, they are around 5 or 6 years old and between 15-20 cm long. It’s at that stage that the lifecycle of the next generation of bream begins. With that in mind I always exercise catch and release when fishing for bream.
Bream bite windows
Bream feed at various times which are specifically determined by trigger events creating what we call bite windows.
Bream understand those trigger event ever so well as it’s entrenched in their DNA.
When less triggers line up it’s reasonable to expect that Bream will spread out searching for tucker and will be harder to target whereas when more bite windows line up Bream will congregate where the triggers line up and will be easier to target.
As anglers what we have to do to get the most out of our bream fishing time is to recognize what the triggers for bite windows are and what causes the triggers to be in different places at different times so that we can take advantage of the accumulation of those triggers and consequently the accumulation of Bream.
Set out below triggers as I currently understand them.
- The two hours either side of each of the following events a may create bite windows and congregation of feeding fish:
- Dawn and dusk
- High and low tide changes
- Bream can be caught throughout the year but the best times are:
- During the winter breading season when bream move down river and estuary mouths to sandy foreshores.
- After spawning Bream move back up into rivers and estuary seeking out habitat mature in.
- Once they have found suitable environment to mature in they tend to stay in those areas for long periods only moving if conditions become unfavorable.
- Maturing Bream tend to be relatively resident for long times in the same area for long periods and only move on if conditions become unfavorable.
- Water Temperature …bream snack throughout the day with bite windows generally triggered when there are concentrations of food and in the hottest part of the day tend to forage deeper and in the cooler part of the days around dusk and down tend to forage more widely depth and terrain wise.
- Moon Phase …
It is worth noting that moon phases have mixed effects on Bream activity.- If your fishing in tidal areas of low tidal runs such as the south coast of NSW then target the times above on around the full moon.
- For places where there are big tidal runs such as Central Queensland I prefer to target Bream during the two Half Moons when the tidal runs are slower than on the Full and New Moons.
- Generally bream are most active when the tide is rising and on the ebb of the rising tide. Keep in mind however that once the tide inundates mangroves bream have a tendency of move deep into the root systems making them hard to target with artificial baits such as flies, lures and soft plastics. Keep in mind that when the tide changes bream have to retreat from the mangroves and for the early part of the falling tide become much easier to target.
Stealth
Keep in mind that bream are easily spooked so you have to be stealthy in your movements and casts.
- So when you approach an area you going to fish do it slowly and if available quietly under the power of your electric motor and take advantage of any cover that’s available. Don’t cast a long shadow over or motor over over the water your going to fish. Longer casts are important and cast to the side of any fish your targeting.
- If your using an anchor deploy and retrieve it slowly and quietly so that there is no bumps or chain noises that will scare fish.
- Part of the stealth equation is fishing as light a leader and tippet as you can get away with flies, lures and soft plastics that have just enough weight or bib action to get those baits down to where bream are holding or feeding.
- Bream are both opportunistic feeders and predators. On one hand, they forage around the bottom, in and around structures, looking for food. On the other hand, they take advantage of structures and wait for food to come to them. They have a varied diet, including prawns, shrimp, other crustaceans, crabs, mollusks such as oysters, worms, and vegetation. They usually feed in small groups from the same cohort in and around weed beds, drowned timber, man-made structures like bridge pylons, pontoons, and bridges, under moored boats, and even on flat, open sandy, and muddy bottoms while searching for food.
- At the end of the day when fishing for bream it’s a matter of matching that hatch and feeding depth or just inducing a strike because the fish is feeding or defending their territory.
What do bream eat.
Bream are both foragers and predators. They forage around the bottom and other structures, looking for food and also take advantage of structures and wait for food to come to them.
They have a varied diets including lifeforms they share their environment with such as small fish and terrestrials that find they way into or onto their habitat. That includes shrimp and prawns, smaller fish, crabs and other crustaceans such as oysters and different types of worms and plant growth.
Bream are gregarious in nature and as such they tend to be in group of similar size fish like to scrounge and hunt in areas where there is some sort of structure or habitats that favors the type of food they target.
Bream – gear and set ups
Flies, lures & soft plastics catch more fisher folk than fish … have a small selection of “baits” you have confidence in.