The Derwent River – bream fishing’s Eldorado by Leigh McKenzie

There's no doubt the Derwent River is no hidden gem waiting to get discovered.

It cuts clean through the middle of Tasmania's capital Hobart and is home to what now is commonly regarded as arguably Australia's best bream fisheries. The size and numbers of bream on offer is essentially unparalleled. It's on the bucket list destination for many die-hard bream aficionado's and still holds the ABT Bream Qualifier, Bream Super Series and Bream Classic records.

Steve Morgan won the first qualifier in 2006 and it the record fell again the following year. Spiro Spyropolous won the Super Series in 2009 and Steve Steer and Andrew Cox broke the ABT Bream Classic record in 2012. As you can see it has consistently produced big fish over a number of years and it has held an average of a shade over 1kg in tournaments.

Being a local and travelling a bit I'm forever being asked the key three questions: when is the best time to fish the Derwent, what areas to hit up, and what type of lures and colours to use.

My normal response is it depends on how you want to target them, what weather you're prepared to cope with and what sort of numbers are you happy to catch.

The river fishes well from October to May but if I had only one month of the year to fish it, taking into account late spawning runs, early autumn rains and a consistent shallow water bite which I'm sure 99% of breamers would prefer, then it's a toss-up between February and March being the best all round month to hit the mighty Derwent, with the latter taking the honours by a bees proverbial.

WHAT IS THE BEST TIME?

Right now the bream are spread out over the entire system. Ideal times are dawn and dusk and the top 1/3 of the tide either side of the high. Quite often there's a lull in bites right on the turn, even when they're on the chew. There's truth in the ole adage of "no run no fun".

WHICH AREAS ARE BEST?

Starting from the estuary's southern end you can fish from the Casino on the western shore and Kangaroo Bay on the east, and be confident of pulling fish fairly frequently all the way upstream to Bridgewater.

There's still fish further south of these spots but it starts to get a bit kelpie and the parrotfish will beat most bluenoses to the punch. They go hard but fight nasty and it can get a bit expensive tackle wise.

Because it's a flats/edge bite this time of year, you don't need to spend time trying to sound up fish and work out what depths they're holding in. This is fantastic for the visiting angler as you don't really need local knowledge to find fish, just pull up on nearly any shore and start fishing and chances are pretty good you'll snag a 1kg+ Tassie black.

Yes, there will definitely be better shores than others but that changes daily with the prevailing weather conditions like any place, the great thing is the fish aren't localised.

Fish should be foraging in 15-90cm of water at this stage and when it drops they don't move far, normally to the first drop off taking them into 1.2-2.4m and they don't tend to move to far from this edge into open water unless there's structure like wharves and boats to hang around.

For a yellowfin bream angler who likes fishing boat hulls it's the perfect time of year. Derwent blacks don't normally sit high in the deeper water under hulls like their northern counterparts but it's common to see them browsing on attached barnacles and moseying around the keels and propellers on the more neglected moored boats.

The major food source this time of year is mussels and crabs, with shrimp and baitfish making up a smaller, albeit significant, proportion. Nearly all the edges in the lower half of the estuary have mussels and oysters hanging off them and there are rocky shores all the way to Austins Ferry that harbour the crabs and shrimp.

WHAT LURES SHOULD I BE THROWING?

So with the plethora of different bream lures available these days, what should you be throwing at the moment? As a general rule anything long and slim in the 5-7cm range for the shallow water. My #1 go to lure for the Derwent is the Bassday Sugar slim 70 which helped me to a 1st and 3rd place in the Derwent ABT Classics over the last two years. GR-03, M-04, C-264 and C-83 being the best colours.

Green and orange bellies (C-83) have always been awesome here on the bream, but flashy silver sided lures can be even better, some other proven options here are the Daiwa Presso, Smiths Pannish and Ecogear MW62s

If they get a bit finicky, smaller lures like the Atomic Hardz Bream Shad 40 Mid (favourite colours Ghost Silver, Muddy Prawn and Ghost Brown Shad), Megabass Live-X Smolts and Ecogear MX48's. Any shrimp/prawny colours work really well in the smaller sizes, yellows and oranges more so than silver styled lures.

Regardless of what you're throwing, don't forget to pause in your retrieve. Anywhere from 2-10 seconds, or even longer on the odd occasion. Speed of retrieve is not as essential but a slow draw of the rod is normally about right. Just don't forget the pause as this is when bream will take the lure.

When the tide drops too much and the bream drop back to the deeper water, I normally change to a fatter, deeper running lure like the Atomic Hardz 45mm Shiner and fish them hard and parallel to the edge they're browsing on. The Shiner is the successor to the Bassday Kangoku Shad 45 which was my favourite lure for years! Larger lures like the Daiwa Double Clutch and Smiths Cherry Blood are also good in the slightly deeper water.

If the fish are sitting closer to the 2.4m mark it's normally a good time to switch over to plastics. I typically run a 1/16-1/8 Atomic Seekerz with a 1/0 hook. Any of your 3" plastics work well like the Berkley Fry, and Atomic jerk minnows, paddle tails and wrigglers are ok but the straight tailed styles seem to tempt more fish. A couple of exceptions to the rule are the Berkley 6" sandworms, Squidgy Pro Lobby, Ecogear Aqua Bream Prawn and my favourite for flicking under structure the Atomic 2" prong on a 1/24 jig head.

You can fish blades and vibes off the edges and around structure but hopefully this time of the year there's no need to fish too deep! Bassday Kangoku Vib40S and Cranka Vib40 are two proven performers if the need arises and here's a tip from left field that nobody uses, the Megabass VibrationX Smatra can provoke a bite when they're really sulky.

Blade wise you can't go past the Ecogear VX40, Ecogear ZX35 Shrimp Blade and Atomic Hardz Metalz.

Oh, I should mention, don't forget a couple of Megabass Dog X Jr's or similar for a bit of top water action. I wouldn't suggest throwing them as a first option, but if you enjoy a challenge and have caught enough sub-surface, well, you won't find a better time of year to try it, need I say more!

Leigh McKenzie operates the Derwent's only specialist bream guiding business and can be contacted on 0407 047 721 or check out his website