Fishing oyster racks can be daunting, Josh Carpenter shares some tips on staying connected to your fish and getting them out of the racks before all is lost.

One of the most challenging places you could ever fish for bream is amongst the oyster racks that are commonplace in many of the estuary systems on the east coast. I say most challenging but also one of the most rewarding as they can yield some XOS-sized bream and extracting them can be a monster task at times. That’s half the fun though. I’ll take the ‘Pepsi challenge’ any day if it involves pulling a kilo plus bruiser from the barren, open, and deep water in places like Lake Macquarie or St Georges Basin on the lightest line you can find. Most rack action is a raw adrenaline slugfest that will be lucky to last 30 seconds and will leave you with your face in your hands, shaking your head when you lose and yahooing and fist pumping when it goes your way. Any angler who tells you they’ve never lost a thumper in the racks is lying, or hasn’t fished racks very much. That all may sound a little bleak but it really is one of the most addictive ways to catch bream.
Choosing a rack
The most daunting part of fishing racks is where to start. It all looks so good and there can literally be thousands of racks to choose from but there are a few tips to make this decision easier. The first is a very common theme to bream fishing and the kinds of estuaries oyster racks are found in and that is to look for current. Current is king and as the old saying goes ‘no run, no fun’. That’s not to say those racks at the back of a lake or inlet won’t hold fish but if you’re playing the percentages, the racks at the entrance to the lake or the ones at the front of that inlet that are licked by the main channel current will most often fare better. The second is to look for the racks that have oysters in them. It may sound obvious but they are the key to the ecosystem that makes racks a good place to fish. Bream will eat the oysters themselves at times but I suspect it is the small prawns and baitfish that seek refuge and food around the oysters that make up a good portion of a rack dwelling bream’s diet.

Where to focus
So once you’ve selected an area or a set of specific racks to fish you then need to decide which parts to target? At this point its’ time to bring up the specific advantages of fishing racks from a kayak. A yak can quietly slip into spots a boat or landbased angler simply cannot. There is a set of racks I fish every time I go to Forster that can only be accessed by entering through water too shallow for a boat and even if they could get in the space between the rack is too skinny for even the smallest boat but my PA14 fits up them perfectly. Think of it in terms of fishing pressure. There are some amazing racks that only have the outside of them fished most of the time but you can access the water that doesn’t see lures too often and this helps a lot. Try to think of racks as having high, medium and lower percentage areas. Concentrate around the high and fish the medium and lower on your way to the next high. The high percentage areas are the ends of the racks and the poles that the racks are stood on. Many racks feature larger poles at certain points and smaller ones throughout the rest. The larger poles would be the high and the smaller poles, the medium. Make multiple casts around the ends of racks, a couple on the larger poles and just one around the smaller poles and of course give everything else a go while you are going past it.
Tidal influences
Tide plays a major part in fishing racks and depending on the time of year there can be a few different peak times. Most anglers prefer when the water is rising and just starting to touch the trays themselves, as this is the transition period when all those little prawns and baitfish have to venture from where they were to the oysters themselves where they feed and seek shelter. In doing so they have to cross ‘hungry bream no-mans land’ to get there. The same can be said when the tide is falling away from the trays and the bait must move elsewhere. But the truly eye-popping stuff occurs when there is enough water over the trays, which then allows bream to get on top to have a go at the oysters themselves. How much is enough water? Well, sometimes that can depend on how big the bream is and I personally think that really big bream become less wary about predation from birds. They can also move in before the small ones and can be easily spotted when they are lying on their side having a go at the oysters.
Lure choice and techniques
Next thing to consider is the choice of lure. This is the easiest part of the equation because just about every type of lure currently in popular use for bream will work well. So my best advice would be to fish to your strengths. If you are most confident throwing a plastic, then throw a plastic. If blades are your thing then go for it and so on. I will add this one point though; fishing plastics tends to be the cheapest option and the fact is YOU WILL LOSE eventually and losing a jighead and plastic doesn’t sting near as much as that magical Japanese hardbody you just took out of the packet. A lot of anglers tend to throw cheaper lures of all kinds in the racks for obvious reasons. As with any fishing there is no magic technique that will fire them up on any given day. I have had days where the fish wanted a plastic deadsticked next to the poles and it was a case of throwing it right next to the pole, letting it sink to the bottom and stay for about 15 seconds before simply winding it in and throwing at the next pole. Then there are other times when the fish have either wanted an almost weightless presentation of a plastic or a heavier than normal weight; experimenting is the key.
The technique I have had most success with is parallel casting hardbodied lures in the racks as the fish love it but it does lead to a fair few bust offs. The one technique that must be mentioned is fishing top-water over the racks. This is by far the most visually exciting as there are plenty of times you can sight cast fish on top of the racks but even when they come from underneath it is a thrill. Top-water is also the best way to cover water and ascertain if there are actually fish in the area. Even if they only come up for a look and refuse, it helps to know you are in the right spot and you can go to plan B to try and catch them. Now when I say over the racks I literally mean over and across. You couldn’t fish any other lure this way, which is why this technique needs a special mention. Cup faced poppers have worked a treat for years and walk-the-dog style lures certainly have their place and on calmer days in lower light the ubiquitous ‘Pink Grubbing’ can be devastating.
Gear
Now we come to the hardest part of the equation, the gear and what to do once you have hooked that blue-lipped donkey. To put it simply, go heavy. Undoubtedly this will be the heaviest gear you will ever fish for bream with, but that doesn’t mean you should spool up your 2000 size reel with 130 lb gamefishing trace. The gear needs to be as heavy as you can go while still getting bites. Keep your leaders short, no more than about 6 ft but 3 to 4 is better. When fishing top-water you can go with as little as a foot. A lot of anglers start their day around the 16 to 20 lb trace and go from there. Go up if you’re getting bites yet still losing fish and go down if you’re not getting bites. It’s a balancing act and something you have to adjust on the fly. In saying that, plenty of people will say I’m crazy but I still maintain that on a straight run, there is no bream that will break 12 lb line by simply pulling against it. Try it yourself, tie 12 lb leader to something solid and wrap it around your hand and pull. It takes a lot to break it. Obviously the enemy in this situation is abrasion or having the line cut on the racks but the braid is most often the worst offender as braid fares very poorly against anything sharp. I figure that if you have hooked a fish and it is deep enough so that your braid is copping the beating you’re three quarters of the way to doomed anyway. I prefer to get that bite on something like 12 lb leader and simply horse the fish out before anything comes into contact with the rack. It doesn’t always work but simply stated, nothing does. Reels that work are your regular 2000 to 2500 size reels. I use my Daiwa Freams because I have a spare spool for it with heavier line just for rack fishing and it has a drag that puts out some serious pressure but still comes into effect smoothly when it does. Whatever school of thought you go with when it comes to how heavy your line is, you are going to be pushing it to redline and the racks is no place for a lightly set drag.
Rod choice
Rods, again is a matter of opinion but ‘heavy’ is still the best descriptor. A broomstick with guides would be perfect in my book if only it could send a lure in the right spot. Again, with my ‘muscle them out’ approach, a soft rod or one with a slower action will simply serve to let the fish get its head and be swimming away from you as the bend in the rod takes up. As an example, you could fish 40 lb leader and a locked drag but if the rod is soft enough and the fish turns and moves two feet in the other direction; he can be hard to stop before your line touches something you don’t want it to. So the best rod to use is the heaviest one you can present your lure properly with and I think I have tried just about everything from 5’6” ‘stump pullers’ through to your average fast taper, medium rated 7 ft rod. I even tried the heaviest interline squid rod that was nearly 10 ft in length and could have easily swung any bream into the yak with. Nowadays, that fast tapered 7 ft medium is my go-to rod.
New approach
One thing that is worth mentioning is the idea of using a baitcast outfit. Tackle technology has come a long way in the past decade and we now have the ability to present lighter, bream-sized lures on saltwater friendly baitcasters with beefy drags. The fact is braid fares very poorly in sharp areas but monofilament and fluorocarbon over about 10 lb perform much worse on spinning reels. So we have taken the lesser of two evils but the idea of using 16 lb fluorocarbon with excellent abrasion resistance straight through on a small baitcast outfit is on the horizon and a few keyed in people are testing the limits of what we can do differently.
I have presented you with a few tips to get out there in your yak and started on one of the most addictive ways to catch a bream bar none. All I can say is give it a go – you may never look back.