CHRIS SMITH

April is my favorite time to put some bream filets in the freezer.

The shallows will soon be swarming with spawning bream and fun for the entire family. Bream or Brim is a term for numerous types of sunfish. Some of the better known names I have heard are: Bluegill and Redear.

East Texas is also home to Longears, Red Breasted, Green Sunfish and Bantam Sunfish. The occasional Warmouth may show up on your hook, they are in the same family (Lepomis).

The main thing to remember about any of the fish mentioned above is they are all excellent table fare and can be caught nearly anywhere there’s water.

Bream fishing may not be as glamorous as other species. There aren’t high performance bream boats or forward facing sonar for bream but nearly every professional angler got their start with the bream.

As mentioned earlier, nearly every pond or creek has at least a few bream and all reservoirs will have a healthy population. Bream will spawn multiple times per year. They start in the spring and will spawn throughout the summer into fall as long as the water temperature is 70 degrees. They seem to peak and ebb throughout the summer but finding a bedding area early will put larger fish in your basket.

Bedding areas are easy to find especially with polarized glasses. If you have ever noticed a shallow, sandy area with tiny depressions, you know what a bream bedding area looks like. A times there will be hundreds of beds crammed together and the area will resemble a honeycomb. When you find a large bedding area like this, remember the location as the fish will return to it every year.

One tip that seems to work is to fish around the outer or deeper sides of the zone. The larger fish seem to hang around the deeper water.

Ultralight spinning gear is my choice for bream but anything from a cane pole to a fly rod is acceptable. The spincast setups are perfect for beginners/kids and the bream do not care who is on the other end, they are fighting! Live bait is probably the number one choice for bream.

Crickets, meal worms or earthworms are all perfect and are readily available. A fellow bream enthusiast told me about some artificial baits he uses with great success. The bait comes in a small jar and they look like crickets. Berkeley makes the bait and I hope to report on their effectiveness soon.

We usually have a few ideas where we are heading but finding new spots is always fun. Once we start fishing a hot area, the action will be fast and furious. When you notice the action slowing down or the size of the fish being caught goes down, spool up and head to the next spot. Keep moving around and always checking for new areas.

If the spawn is in full swing where you are, its likely you will have all you need in a short time.

Load the entire family up this weekend and get your bream filets in order.