Gary Brown shares his tips and tricks for snagging a bream or two from the bream rich waters of the Shoalhaven River.

The Shoalhaven River can be one of the most frustrating places to fish and can at times bring you to tears. On the other hand though, it can be one of the most productive places on the south coast to fish for dusky flathead, whiting, mulloway, tailor, luderick, Australian bass, estuary perch and of course bream.
To give you an idea of the enormity of the river, Shoalhaven rises on the eastern side of the Great Dividing Range, below Euranbene mountain, about 350 km southwest of Sydney and is about 327 km long.
The upper reaches of the river flows through upland pastoral district near the town of Braidwood and works its way down into a remote canyon east of Goulburn before emerging into the coastal lowlands at Nowra in the Shoalhaven district.
Along the way the river is joined by 34 tributaries, including the Corang, Endrick, and Kangaroo rivers, plus Bomaderry and Broughton creeks. What you need to remember is that this is not all saltwater.
The estuary has two entrances, approximately five kilometres apart, that flow into the Shoalhaven Bight within the Tasman Sea of the South Pacific Ocean. The southern entrance is located at Crookhaven Heads and is permanently open. The Shoalhaven River flows south via Berrys Canal to Greenwell Point, where it is joined by the Crookhaven River and then flows east past Orient Point into the bight, north of Culburra.
In my last Bream Tactics article for Sport Fishing Australia I took you through 4 different techniques that I use when targeting bream with hardbodied lures, soft plastics and blades. These can all be used effectively in the Shoalhaven River and its tributaries.
They were:
1. Soft Plastics over shallow weed beds
2. Rolling hard bodies over shallow rocks
3. Blading in deep water
4. Soft plastics in 2 to 3 metres of water
Rather than going over these techniques again, I have referred you to the map included in this article with techniques 1 to 6. This includes two extra techniques that can be tried while fishing the Shoalhaven, or anywhere else for that matter.
5. DEAD STICKING A SOFT PLASTIC OR BLADE
When dead sticking a soft plastic or blade I either use fluorocarbon straight through or braid with a 4 to 5 m leader. It’s good to use a longer leader with braid as it acts as a bit of a shock absorber when setting the hook.
When using fluorocarbon straight through there can be a slight disadvantage where the line can be picked up by the current, putting a bow in your line, making it hard to feel the bite. On the flipside, fluorocarbon is hard for the fish to see and at times they will just pick up the soft plastic or blade and take off with it.
Another thing to keep in mind when using this method is that you need to have a rod at least 2.1 m in length combined with a size 30 or 40 reel. This will give you more casting distance, which is something that you need when fishing the flats.
Sometimes when using this technique all you need to do is cast out the soft plastic or blade and wait patiently for the bream to pick it up mid water or on the bottom before taking off with it.
6. SURFACE – WALK THE DOG STYLE LURES
Walk the dog style is the name of the technique given when retrieving this style of lure, but believe me, it looks nothing like walking a dog.
The lure’s action is achieved by doing a number of things. You need to move the rod tip from side to side and the wider the movement the more erratic the lure moves. While moving the rod from side to side you must also wind slowly, ensuring no loops form on the spool all the while keeping your eye on the lure at all times.
Some of the takes can be explosive, while others may be more subtle and visual cues such as bow waves forming behind the lure from following bream will be the best indicator. You might also encounter bream that nudge the lure and miss the hooks.
In order to try and convince finicky bream to eat the lure rather than nudge it, there are a couple of things you can try: stop the lure dead in its tracks to convince the bream the prey has been stung and ready for the taking, impart slight twitches, or speed up the retrieve to trick the bream into thinking it is getting away.
Mix it up on the day until you find a method that works.
Berkley Prawn Dog and Scum Dog, Luckycraft Sammy 65s and NW Pencil 52, Sebile Ghost Walker 52 and the Red Pepper Micro are all types of walk the dog style lures that I use when chasing bream.
They range from long and thin to short and fat in a variety of colours. This enables me to pick one, for example the Berkley Prawn Dog (short and fat) and if that doesn’t work I would revert to something like the Berkley Scum Dog (short and thinner), and failing that I would try the Red Pepper Micro (long and thin).
SUGGESTED OUTFITS
1. 2.1 m, 1 to 3 kg, 1 piece Pflueger Trion rod mounted with a Pflueger Purist threadline that was spooled with 2 kg Fireline Exceed and no more than a metre of 2 kg or 3kg Berkley fluorocarbon Trilene. This is ideal be for the walk the dog style technique.
2. 2.1 m, 2 to 4 kg, 1 piece Pflueger Trion rod mounted with a Pflueger Purist threadline that was spooled with 2 kg Fireline Exceed and 4 to 5 metres of 2 kg Berkley fluorocarbon Trilene. This would be used when dead sticking blades.
3. 2.1 m, 1 to 3 kg, 1 piece Pflueger Trion rod mounted with a Pflueger Purist threadline that was spooled with 1 to 2 kg of Berkley fluorocarbon Trilene. This would be used when dead sticking soft plastics.

BLADE TYPES
Berkley Power Blades 35, 40 and 45’s, Strike Pro Cyber Vive 35 and 40, Strike Pro Astro Vibe 45 and TT Lures ¼ and 1/8 oz Switch Blades.
JIGHEAD TYPES AND SIZES
• Nitro Bream Pro – 1/50, 1/32, 1/24, 1/16, 1/12 and 1/8 oz. Hook size will vary from No 4 to 1/0.
• TT Lures – Tournament Series HWS 1/60, 1/40, 1/28 and 1/20 oz. Hook size will vary from No 2 to 1/0.
• TT Lures – Tournament Series 1/20, 1/16, 1/12 and 1/8 oz. Hook size will vary from No 2 to 1/0
PLASTICS
• Berkley Gulp – 2 inch Shrimp, 2 inch Minnow, 2 and 2.5 inch Crabby, 4 inch Nemesis
• Berkley Powerbait three inch Minnow.
• Juro three inch Longtail Minnow.
• Gladiator 7 cm Smash Baits.Gary Brown is located in the Sutherland Shire in southern Sydney, but spends a lot of his time chasing a variety of fish species up and down the east coast of Australia. Gary likes to chase anything that swims in both salt and freshwater, but you will mainly find him bait and lure fishing for bream, flathead, luderick, trevally and kingfish in the estuaries or drummer, luderick, bream and groper off the rocks. Gary is currently sponsored by Pure fishing, TT Lures and Uglyfish eyewear.