By Mark Gercovich
Victoria 2010 saw serious, consistent rain extend from winter well into the early months of summer. Angling options were seriously affected by the deluge and as much as I enjoy my trout and deep water bream fishing, I was getting a little over it and looking for something different.
My two young sons had been at me to go fishing. Now usually I would have taken them for a bit of a vibe session on the local bream. But the fish that had been showing on the sounder had been very slow to bite on deep techniques such as vibing or fishing plastics on light line. It certainly wasn’t going to be productive enough fishing to keep two young boys interested.
Trolling had often been a way of getting them onto some fish in the past, but with the fish holding in the deep water away from the fresh water on the surface and margins, our usual trolling runs weren’t going to provide much joy. However, I decided to put the downriggers, still on the boat from a trout session earlier in the week, to use in the hope that we could get lures down to where the bream were holding. We headed to the area of the river where on previous trips we had been sounding up plenty of fish but struggling to catch any. Sure enough, the fish began showing on the Humminbird in the same area that I’d marked them previously so we deployed the downriggers.
We had only travelled a short distance when I noticed line had unclipped from one of the downriggers and was angling off to the side of the boat. Estuary perch often angle off to the side when hooked and this seemed like a smallish specimen so I told my eldest son to get the rod. As he did, the fish woke up and began peeling line, suggesting something far larger than a small perch. The 41 cm bream that was soon sliding into the net was the first of many bream we managed that trip and over the next few weeks on downrigged hardbody lures.
Bream taken on a Zipbait Rigge Deep 56.
How
So how do you go about trying to catch a bream on a downrigger? As mentioned earlier it is a good technique for catching fish holding in deep water say from 5–9 m deep. The first step is finding these schooled up fish using your sounder. A quality sounder is essential so you can reliably locate fish and thus give you the confidence to put your time into a particular area. Even though you cover the ground quicker than if you were using other luring methods, you are still travelling fairly slowly under electric power. Because you won’t be too manoeuvrable, look for fish holding in areas where you can get a decent trolling run in, without having to worry about too many snags. Fortunately bream are well known to come off structure and school heavily in deep, flat bottomed areas at this time of year.
The benefit of using a downrigger for bream is the ability to be able to present a hardbodied style lure at a depth that it usually wouldn’t be able to achieve by itself. The benefit of this is that bream will often hit a hardbody for two reasons. The obvious reason is they think it’s a prey item and want to eat it. However, bream that are shut down and not interested in feeding are still partial to hitting a hardbody out of aggression, even if they are not interested in eating it. This reaction bite is not easily obtained if you were using, say, a deep fished soft plastic.
Even though you may be looking for a reaction type of bite, I’m sure a bream isn’t going to react towards a downrigger bomb in the way a trout might. When trout trolling, quite often it can be advantageous to fish your lure close to the bomb or the bomb with a trolling attractor attached as the curious trout are often attracted to this first, then hit the lure or bait trailing close behind. When downrigging for bream however, you need to fish your lure on a far longer backdrop from the bomb than that. The reason for this is to give plenty of line to allow the lure to dive to its maximum depth, keeping it out of the path of the bomb and diving into the fish schooled below. Once again, a quality sounder and knowing how deep your lure dives are important factors here.
The lures I have been using are all rated to dive to around 1.8–2 metres. If the fish are holding in 6 m of water, having that lure attached to your bomb in about 3–3.5 m of water should have it running close enough to the bottom to arouse a fish’s interest without it being so close to the bottom that it constantly picks up weed. It is important that you continually check the lure to see that it hasn’t picked up any weed or algae as it will not only effect the lure’s action, but also fish rarely hit a lure that has any weed on it.
Setting up
As stated earlier, it is important to fish the lure well back off the bomb, so the first cast your lure out a full cast behind the boat then attach the line to the downrigger clip. The clip needs to be one with a fairly light tension– the same clip that you would use for trout fishing would be fine. Make sure you have backed the drag off enough so that the line will stay in the clip as you lower the bomb. Then slowly lower the bomb to the required depth using the counter on your downrigger or by watching the bomb on the sounder, which will show up as a very distinctive line at the depth it is running. Re-tighten the drag and wind the rod tip down so that it is under some tension. This helps take up any slack line when a fish hits and assists in setting the hook efficiently.
It sounds simple but can be a bit of chore if you are also trying to manage the boat position at the same time as putting one, then a second downrigger out. My new Minn Kota I-Pilot electric motor is a wonderful piece of technology that assists in this situation. With the remote on a lanyard around my neck it is always easily accessible should I need to alter course or speed whilst attending to the downriggers.
When I find a stretch of river holding fish that are biting then the ‘record a track’ feature can be employed. This feature uses GPS technology to allow me to retrace that path automatically, keeping my concentration free to attend to the downriggers and more fun things like pulling in fish!
Interline rods are great downrigging tools. Keep the rod tensioned to assist with a positive hookup.
Lures
You need to be looking for deeper diving style lures that are able to get down away from the tracking depth of the bomb. Another important factor is choosing quality, well balanced lures that track well without tangling. Even though you will be trolling at a slow speed behind the electric, the lures will be working harder than in a normal cast and retrieve scenario. This is particularly evident as you are lowering the bomb. A lure that ‘hangs up” on itself, tangling the line at this time would be particularly annoying. I have found elongated minnow style lures like the Daiwa Double Clutch and the Zipbait Rigge F56 Deep to work well behind the downrigger as well as being attractive (or annoying enough) to elicit a strike.
Tackle
Standard bream tackle is fine for downrigging. The convenience of a shorter rod of 6ft 6in to 6ft 8in is beneficial when setting the downrigger. I have been using the Daiwa Interline 6ft 6in model and have found that the lack of guides also helps greatly when downrigging. Line wrapping around a guide (particularly the tip guide) can result in the line pulling from the clip as you try to deploy the bomb. With the Interline rod there is no chance of this happening.
As you are fishing at depth you can get away with using 6–8lb leader. This is slightly heavier than the 4–5lb leader often favoured for bream luring and is important for a few reasons. As there is a fair bit of line out the angles are working in favour of a big bream being able to find a snag. The extra power of the heavier leader can help to control a good fish. Also, as you are trying to run your lures close to the bottom, even the most vigilant sounder watcher is going to become snagged at some time. The heavier leader at least gives you a better chance of getting your lure back. A Tackle Back can also be an invaluable piece of equipment.
Estuary perch are also rather partial to a trolled hardbody.
Why?
Catching bream on a downrigger may not be as much fun as pink grubbing them off the surface or casting to snags, but it’s all about adaptability and fishing techniques to suit the conditions encountered. I’d rather catch fish deep trolling than catch no fish at all. As much as I love slight fishing or casting to structure when breaming, it’s not always for everyone. The young, the elderly or the inexperienced may find it difficult to catch bream using techniques favoured by experienced lure anglers. However if you are taking any of the aforementioned people fishing you can put them onto fish by trolling.
Another way downrigging can be employed is by anglers sounding for fish. Many anglers drive slowly along looking for fish or structure on their sounders but don’t fish whilst doing it. Having a lure out the back on a downrigger might help in determining whether that school you’ve just located on your sounder is an actively feeding school or a shut down one.
Whilst a downrigger can be an expensive item just to target bream, it is also a valuable tool in many other angling scenarios. Adding the flexibility of a downrigger to your angling arsenal may help put more fish in the boat during difficult times.
