Bream Fishing from Kayak

Bream refers to a wide variety of sunfish species the list is long but includes bluegills, shellcrackers, pumpkinseeds, redbreast sunfish, long-eared sunfish and a host of others. Here in the South, we still call any

sunfish species a bream. Once when a friend visited from up north, he got all excited when he heard me talking about bream because he had never caught one. When I took him fishing and he caught one he said, “Hell, that’s just a bluegill: I’ve been catching them since I was a child!”

The kid depicted in the all-American image with a cane pole and a can of worms is more than likely fishing for some form of bream. This is because bream are widely distributed geographically and are easy to catch. They can live in any body of water, from small ponds and streams to huge lakes and rivers.

I grew up catching bream and green trout on a cane pole, and still love it. The first fish that I caught on a fly rod as a child was a bream on a popping bug which became my favorite method of fishing for them. These days, my favorite method of fishing for bream is out of a kayak with ultra light tackle: the kayak adds a whole new dimension to an already wonderful sport.

Short, maneuverable and light weight, it opens up a whole new world of bream and bass fishing in waters that are otherwise inaccessible and therefore never, or seldom fished. The cypress swamps and river systems of the South are loaded with areas into which it is very difficult to access in a larger boat or other means. In fact, this applies just about anywhere else where bream fishing is available.

Kayaks also allow you to get away from the noise and waves of high speed bass boats and enjoy the privacy and solitude of your own little world. I am sure that any angler, regardless of were they live, can visualize such a place.

I have been eating saltwater fish for so long that I have recently been thinking about adding some variety to my diet and tasting some good ol’ fried bream…not to mention how much fun it would be to catch them!

Yesterday, knowing that a cold front was on the way, I decided to go catch a “mess of bream” with Pat Ogburn, a good friend and fishing companion since childhood. Pat has access to some prime bream habitat, so we loaded up a couple of kayaks and took off for his place.

We both elected to use light weight fly rods. I did most of my fishing with a two weight fly rod that I had custom rigged with a sinking shooting head. I normally like to catch bream on a popping bug or top water fly, but the bigger fish seemed to be down deeper yesterday, creating unbelievable subsurface action. I took a four weight fly line and cast it rigged on the two weight rod, until I found the right length of line. I kept extending line until I felt the sweet spot where it was really loading the rod. I then cut the four weight line at the tip of the rod and spliced in a shooting head made of Amnesia.

Amnesia is a type of monofilament line which does not retain any memory (sort of like me) so even though it has been stored wrapped around the spool of a reel when you pull it off it is relatively straight, not coiled up. It is a pleasure to cast and is really fun when you’re catching fish.

Note: You do not have to make fishing this complicated. You really can have a blast with a cane pole and a can of worms!

We lost count of how many bream we caught and released. Pat and I reflected on how in the old days we would have felt obligated to fill up a cooler. I had fried bream and grits on my mind so I kept enough for a meal. Bream fishing should be available to almost everyone at sometime during the year…so grab your kayak and give it a try. Better yet, take a kid with you to give him or her a first, memorable experience!