Bream fishing 101

May is great for bluegills, shellcrackers, redbreasts and warmouths

If you had to assign a month to each of the popular freshwater species sought out by anglers in the Carolinas, you could argue March for bass and April for crappie. You’d get some pushback from bass and crappie anglers as well as striper, trout, and catfish anglers who want their own month. 

You’d get the least argument assigning May as bream month. A lot of anglers choose to forego other months and other species, but live and breathe for the month of May when they can go bream fishing. One of the anomalies about bream is that we have no such species in North America. You’d have to visit Australia to actually find a true “bream,” which are sometimes referred to as porgies in some countries.

Here at home, Carolina anglers use the term bream to refer to any of a number of sunfish species, which also include black bass and crappie. Remove these two and everything else is a bream. This “everything else” includes several sunfish species that are too small, for either sporting or eating interests, to be of much use, leaving us with bluegill, redear sunfish (shellcrackers), redbreast sunfish, and warmouth.

The distribution, diet, and breeding cycles of each bream species are varied. But May fits the bill when it comes to finding and catching bream. Accordingly, a few other tricks and tips will help you cash in this month.

Up and down 

During the remainder of the year, adult bream species spend most of their time in deeper water. But during their spawning seasons, bream will invade the shallows to make their beds as well as feed. Bluegills are typically insect feeders, although they will readily eat most anything that comes near their nest. And when specifically targeting bluegill, crickets are a top-producing bait, especially when fished on the surface or at least in the upper half of the water column.

Finding the majority of their dinner on the bottom or even under the mud, worms fished directly on the bottom are a good choice when specifically targeting shellcrackers.

Rattling Float Trick

Fish see substantially better in muddy water than anglers give them credit for. But when fishing for bluegill in muddy or stained water, using a rattling cork, an old crappie fishing trick, comes in handy.

The rattling cork is a small, pear-shaped plastic bobber with tiny weights inside. When the bobber moves, it rattles, sending out vibrations in the water. These vibrations are designed to arouse the curiosity of fish, bringing them closer to investigate.

While these are commercially made, you can create DIY ones by purchasing standard bobbers and drilling a hole with a 3/16-inch bit. Cut open a No. 7 shotgun shell and remove the pellets. Drop six to eight pellets into the hole and seal over with silicone. 

Live Baits vs Artificial

Crickets and worms are the top two live baits, and probably account for the lion’s share of bream that anglers catch. Small sized artificial baits also work well without the mess and hassle of keeping up with live baits.

Fly anglers love to fish small popping bugs for bluegill. In areas where several bream species may reside, a sinking fly can be attached via a short leader to the bend in the hook of the bug. When the bug lands, the fly will sink behind it and offer a one-two punch.

Small Beetle-Spin type jigs have been popular for bream fishing over the years. These baits are also great search baits when looking for bream beds in water too deep to see the dimples in the bottom from the surface. Another great search bait is an inline spinnerbait. One challenge with using these baits is the tendency of bluegill to nip at the hair trailer on the spinner without ever getting the hook. Several companies now make small, inline spinners complete with a tiny treble hook stinger to catch those short-striking fish.

Males and Females

When fishing for spawning bream, the male constructs the nest and spends all of his time guarding the nest once the female has laid her eggs. Females typically lay eggs in more than one nest, and will often move off the spawning grounds when not actively laying eggs.

Since males are generally smaller than their female counterparts, anglers may look out away from the nesting sites along the first drop to find the larger females. The concentration of females is not as dense as the males. So these areas often get overlooked by anglers seeking bream. 

Moon Phases

Moon phases dictate when spawning will occur for all sunfish species, including bass, bream, and crappie. But this can be confusing, as generally speaking, four days before and a few days after the full moon, bream are at the peak of spawning activity. Males will remain on the nest until the fry are hatched. So this extends that time frame even further.

Moon phase is not the only factor determining when bream will spawn. Other factors such as water temperature and water levels also play an important role. But it’s worth noting the moon phase when planning a bream fishing trip.

Stump Knockin’ 

Several bream species will eat crawfish, but one member in particular is the warmouth. Named for the brightly colored markings on the side of its bass-shaped head, warmouths often inhabit swampy areas such as sloughs, swamps, and lowland ponds. Some anglers refer to warmouths as stumpknockers because they love wood-studded areas loaded with stumps, fallen trees and logs. Combine a crawfish-imitating bait with heavy wooded cover and you’ve found a recipe for warmouth.

Warmouth sometimes get a bad rap for the soft, mushy consistency of their flesh. One way to combat this is to deposit warmouth directly into the cooler on a bed of ice rather than in the livewell if you intend to clean and eat them later.

A day this month with light tackle can make for some of the most fun and action-filled time on the water. In this age of high-tech electronics used by anglers, the simplicity of bream fishing is a pure joy. 

Forget the fish finder

Old timers often found bream beds, not with modern fancy electronics, but by following their eyes and nose. Once you get close, you can even hear bream feeding. 

Ideally, start looking for bream on the beds the week before the full moon. Bream will start fanning their beds to create the cavities they will lay eggs in. And when they do, a distinctly fishy odor will rise to the surface. This is detectable by the angler’s nose. Some claim to be able to smell them from 100 yards away. The fanning will also cause bubbles in the water that you can see on the surface.

It’s also a common thought that bream prefer to bed around “dead wood” more than around live trees. So when searching for bream beds in a new area, look for dead trees, stumps, and fallen limbs. That kind of cover will have better appeal to spawning bream. 

Since all bream species prefer to bed on a hard bottom, ease over and probe the bottom with a pole or long rod. If you feel a hard sand, gravel, or clay bottom, it’s a pretty good bet there’ll be bream beds somewhere in the area. Back away and approach the area with the wind in your face so you can smell bed-making activity, and look for bubbles on the surface.

If you’re still having trouble zeroing in, allow the area to settle down and listen for soft, subtle sounds of smacking on the water’s surface. This distinct noise is created when bream suck flies and other insects off the surface.