A FEW days holiday on the southern coastline was a long overdue chance to unwind and do a spot of fishing.
The Surrey River 10 minutes East of Portland is renowned for its bread and butter fishing.
Mullet and bream are the main catch that keep holiday goers entertained and most often produce a nice fish for the pan.
With several dozen small beach crabs collected from under the rocks along the north shore I had bait enough for a session on the bream.
I also grabbed a bag of frozen pipis should the bream prove hard to tempt on the hard crab baits.
Bream can be founds right the way along the Surrey River that winds its way through the Narrawong caravan park.
You can launch a boat if you like but most often it’s just as easy to catch good sized bream from the bank.
During the day bream tend to sit in the deeper water where weed beds and constant shade provide them the security they desire.
I prefer to fish the shallow sand end of the river where families swim and snorkel about in the warmer water.
Sand castles, water fights and general running, digging and jumping turn over the bottom of the shallow river in sometimes less than a metre of water.
All this bottom disturbance creates a prime feeding ground for bream when the clouds roll in and the swimmers head home.
My first baits were constantly hammered by small salmon cast after cast and fresh pipis were eaten before they could touch down on the bottom.
As annoying as this can be, all the smaller fish flashing and feeding in the shallows generally given time will attract the larger black bream.
And so it was, the line with the hard crab bait screamed off as a sizable bream scoffed the bait and headed up river at top speed.
Bream are pretty good scrappers on light tackle and I had forgotten this as the fish made a quick run to the far bank.
Within a few minutes the sizable bream slid up the sand and was placed in a large bucket filled with salt water.
Where there is one bream there are generally others and it only took a few short minutes before the pipi laden rod screamed to life with another sizable fish.
This bream was a little bigger than the first which it now joined in the bucket.
We would catch two more for the session before they finally went off the bite.
Black bream inhabit most southern estuaries and bite best during the warmer months.
They will eat both fresh and kitchen baits with crabs, worms, pipis and fresh chicken all on the menu.
Bream are also excellent on the plate which is exactly what happened to our catch later that evening.
Fresh pan fried bream with salad and chips followed by a cold lager – what a great way to finish of a day’s fishing on a coastal holiday.
Photo – Donna Mackenzie with a couple of solid Black Bream from the Surrey River.
