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Fly Fishing With Robert Jarvis
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Bread and Bream Copyright 2003 Robert Jarvis
I was picking up my son Callum from primary school one winter’s day when Eddy, (father of Kinglam, one of Callum’s class mates), asked me if I could bring my Fly Fishing gear over to his home at Newport Waterways on the Redcliffe Peninsula, to show him what was required to catch fish. Always keen to help one of my fishing brothers, we arranged to meet the following Friday afternoon after work at his home on the canals.
I am very proud of my Strudwick DBT 6wt Fly rod and Taimer TR 3 fly reel so I reverently stowed them in my car with a box of flies from my last fishing trip and headed off to Eddy’s place for show and tell. After I had shown Eddy all of the components, I assembled the rod and reel and proceeded out the back of his home to give him a look at casting. After a couple of minutes the sun went down and it started to get dark. I noticed that there were some swirls on the water so I told my host that if he could find some stale bread, I would see if I had a bread fly and maybe we could catch a bream. I also noticed that it was high tide and this was a major plus when berleying as the bread would not float off down the canal taking the fish with it. Berleying is not kosher with the spirit of fly fishing (except in my opinion for fish like mullet where there is no other alternative and that is why the accompaning photo is the only one I have of my fly caught bream) but it does keep your fly rod in your hand over the winter period. The banks of the canals at Newport take one of three different forms- a light grey sand, a gravel (in the newer stages) or large boulders. The boulders particularly are a great home for a variety of small baitfish and prawns. Every time I have trolled lures through the canals, I usually bump into a chap throwing a cast net. After talking with him I discovered that they net a good bucket load of king prawns for a minor amount of effort. And as we all know, Bream love prawns. The bank that backs Eddy’s land that runs into the canal consists of boulders and his neighbours have provided the perfect habitat for bream with their boat pontoons. Eddy returned with half a loaf of bread just as I was tying on a Bread fly that I normally use for catching Mullet. The bread fly is tied on a size 10 Gamagatsu L10-3H hook and dubbed with white egg yarn. Used with a floating weight forward line, the fly will imitate a small piece of bread very well. In the beginning it will float for 5 to 10 seconds then sink slowly to the bottom. The fly is cast out as close to the action as possible without lining the fish and allowed to sink about 300 mm, then retrieved very slowly keeping contact with the fly at all times so you can feel any takes. This slow retrieve aids in another way - when you feel the take, you already have the action in your hands ,to strip set, which is more efficient than striking with the rod. In my experience, with the aid of polarised sunglasses, I have noticed that it is only the small Bream that take the berley off the surface. The larger fish hang deep and wait for crumbs to sink to their level. This is why the bread fly needs to sink. Large bream hang at least 300 mm under the surface and so I let the fly sink to that level before I start the retrieve. If I don’t get any takes, on my next cast I allow the fly to sink a little deeper before I commence my retrieve, and so on and so forth until I find the depth the fish are at. We scrunched two slices of bread, threw them on the water and waited until the fish found it. We didn’t have to wait long for the fish to start chowing down on the berley but I waited for them to build up confidence and really start to feed vigorously. I noticed some big fish backs breaking the surface so I cast the fly just short of the action and very slowly started retrieving. The fly was hit several times on each retrieve and on about the 10th cast I strip set the hooks into a 275mm long Bream which put up an exciting fight. Eddy called Helen, his wife to come see what we had caught. Helen brought a stainless steel bowl and asked me to put the fish into it. Now I normally release Bream because they are not the best eating fish, but my host told me that Helen would steam the Bream the way she had learnt in her homeland Hong Kong. My next great passion besides fishing is eating, but don`t tell my wife that. Eddy and I fished for about a hour and landed five Bream and one 450mm long Snub Nosed Gar, all of which, apart from the initial bream, were released. Very good fun for one hour’s fly fishing after work where I did not have to get wet or launch a boat. During this session, I noticed on the border of the berley that a different fish was making a popping noise on the surface. I surmised that this was Tarpon attracted not by the Bread but by the small bait fish or even prawns that were feeding on the berley without caution. I looked through my fly box for a pattern that may hook one of these fine sport fish but alas the cupboard was bare. We moved back into Eddy’s home to escape the sand flies and sat down to steamed Bream. I have consumed Bream Poached, Fried and Baked but this was by far the best bream meal I have ever tasted.
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