Use these techniques for hot bream bed action
Bream fishing provides excellent fish-catching opportunities throughout the summer months.
And it’s prime time to expand your fishing knowledge of your home lake, as well as exploring new bream-laden waters. During summer, anglers can use proven methods to find bull bream.
Fishing activity on bream-beds peaks during the spring. But it is still a highly productive option during the summer. That’s because bream consistently bed all summer.
Brad Taylor is a multi-species fishing guide, including huge shellcrackers and bluegills, at Lake Murray in South Carolina. Taylor has fished for bream throughout the southeast region of the country and he’s developed specific tactics to consistently catch bream on the beds.
“Finding bream beds by simply hunting for them while fishing is an extremely fun and highly productive way to learn a new lake or even expand your knowledge of the lake you primarily fish,” Taylor said.
Expanding his knowledge of Lake Murray is an ongoing process that keeps him on top of the best bream action. And he said his bream-finding technique works on any lake.
“Bream beds are not randomly located. They’re found on specific types of bottom substrate. And finding that is the key to success,” Taylor said. “Bream bed on sandy or pea gravel bottoms so they can fan out a bed. A bed is simply a fanned depression on the bottom for females to deposit eggs. It’s guarded by the big males, our primary target.
Skip the muck
“If the bottom is mucky, pass it by,” he said. “However, in some lakes a light covering of silt may hide a potentially good bottom substrate and bream can fan that top layer off. Look at the shoreline to see if sand, or gravel, exists. If so, it’s possible it extends in the underwear area too.”
Taylor (803-331-1354) focuses on water depths from shallow down to at least 5 feet deep. But depending on the lake, don’t hesitate to fish deeper water. During the summer, bream tend to bed deeper.
“When I locate a bream bed in the shallower depth, I’ll fish that, but will check deeper adjacent water too, because the largest fish will be in the deepest water of a bed,” he said.
Taylor said locating the right bottom substrate is essential. He fishes those areas to find the exact location of the beds.
“I like to do what I refer to as power fish if the water is dingy,” Taylor said. “Two anglers fish from the front of my boat, targeting the area ahead. One fishes crickets at a fixed depth with a float. The other uses a slip float with worms as bait. The fixed float depth is changed according to the depth being fished to allow the worm to sink to the bottom, or just above. Either bait will catch bream and shellcracker. But crickets tend to target bluegills and worms are preferred by shellcrackers.
“I move the boat at a fast pace. So we fish effectively, but cover water searching for the beds,” he said. “The anglers keep casting and working until we catch a big male bream or shellcracker. And then we work that area with the appropriate bait for the species caught.”
“In clear water, I have the option of searching for beds using polarized glasses to scan the bottom, looking specifically for beds,” he said. “I’ll use the electric motor to keep the boat moving. When I spot a target, I’ll maneuver the boat so we can make long casts, working the edge of the bed and moving in as needed.”
Sonar optional
Modern electronic sonar is not required to find bream beds. But if you understand the basics of where bream like to bed, it speeds up the bream-bed finding process exponentially.
Stacey Weatherford from Moncks Corner, SC grew up on lakes Marion and Moultrie and has fished them for years. But he also enjoys taking his Humminbird sonar unit to other lakes to track down bream beds.
“Employing side-scan sonar enables me to significantly expand my search area for bream beds,” Weatherford said. “Last year I fished a lake I’d never fished, and I fished it with a friend who knew this lake well, from years of fishing it. Within the first 4 hours, we scanned and marked all the beds he’d found in the past, in one specific sector of the lake, plus added 35 more new beds to his list that he’d never found or fished. We fished several of the new ones to verify. And they all produced big, male bream.”
Weatherford said the first step is identical to what Taylor does without sonar: target the areas with the right bottom substrate.
“I’ll set my range on the side-scan to less than maximum, often around a 50-foot range, because I’ll be able to see a better image of the bottom. I’ll keep the boat in a depth where I have the potential to find beds on the outside, deeper water, too. In fact, that’s exactly what occurred on the above-mentioned trip and about a third of the beds we found were on the deeper side of the boat.”
Weatherford motors along the shoreline with his outboard at a speed where his unit provides plenty of detail of the lake bottom, but fast enough to effectively cover water.
Speed is a factor
“The speed an angler goes will vary with the quality of the side-scan unit being used, as well as the characteristics of the specific lake,” he said. “Generally, I’ve found bream prefer to bed in protected pockets or coves. So I’m constantly maneuvering the boat to ensure I cover the water effectively.”
Weatherford said bream will bed on shallow flats and in the middle of coves or pockets with the right bottom substrate.
“The beds found in the middle of a cove, perhaps in 5 to 7 feet of water, and those on open-water flats, are places most bream fishermen never target,” he said. “These open-water beds can be numerous. And several of the best beds I’ve ever fished were found in these specific type areas.”
Weatherford said the way he fishes a bed he’s marked on side-scan is important in terms of catching as many fish as possible from that bed.
“When I spot a bed, I have an exact location and I’ll position the boat so I can fish the outer edge of the bed first,” he said. “Then as the fishing slows, I’ll move so I can target further into the bed.
“The side-scan feature literally marks fish on the beds, with a hotspot in the center. So I have an idea of how many fish may be in an area,” he said. “I never clean a bream bed out. I always leave a few and this seems to continue to attract more bream back to that bed. It re-populates quickly and can be fished again after a few days’ rest. If it’s fished out, it may not produce again that summer, and maybe not even the following year.”
Weatherford said bream will bed all summer. And while the peak may be on a full moon, he finds active bream beds throughout each month.
“The trip with this same buddy occurred in July of 2022, nearly two weeks ahead of a full moon,” he said. “We found plenty of active bream on the beds we fished to verify it. And I could see the beds and the fish on the side-scan. So it was simply a matter of putting bait on the right spot.”
Don’t forget to fish
Weatherford said if an angler has the knowledge to locate and fish bream beds without the assistance of sonar, then the addition of sonar speeds the process tenfold.
“For me, the biggest problem is I get so caught up in the searching process, that even when I mark new beds on new waters, internally I want to keep looking for more,” he said. “That’s why I make myself proof-fish and verify that they are beds, and that it is bream I’m marking.”
“Then I remember why bream fishing is so much fun,” he said.
Once you find these summertime bream beds, you’ll be able to enjoy consistent bed-fishing action right into September on most lakes in North and South Carolina. As the water temperature cools, bream-fishing patterns will morph and bedding activity ceases as bream migrate to deeper, non-bedding targets for fall and winter.
But for now, bream-bed fishing provides fantastic, and often overlooked, opportunities on your home lake, and on new-to-you, waters.
Sniff it out
Lake Murray fishing guide Brad Taylor said the scent of a bed of bream is strong in the humid summer air. He locates the proximity of beds by smell in dingy or clear water.
“The smell is a fishy smell, distinct but consistent. And once a fisherman scents it while fishing a bed, it’s an easy scent to remember,” he said. “Some fishermen are skeptical at first. But once you’ve experienced scenting a bed, then finding it and catching a pile of bream because of that scent, it becomes a reliable tool for finding beds.”
Be the first to comment