,
Printable View
,
Most of the salmonoids spawn in fall, which is why salmon eggs are great bait this time of year. Rainbows and cutthroats spawn in spring in cold water; goldens spawn in summer and the rest in the fall. The warmest spawning temperature is for rainbows at 50 - 59 degrees. - Roberta
Here's an informative article from Game&Fish Magazine about Bream Spawning
Moon Phases And Bedding Bream
You often hear anglers talking about bream bedding around the time of the full moon. Just how much effect does lunar phases have on these fish? Let's take a closer look.
Photo by Michael Skinner
by Kevin Dallmier
There is no purer joy in angling than setting up shop on a spawning bed and catching bull bream until the cows come home. It is an unarguable fact - when bream are bedding, the fish are biting. On a good spawning ground, even a neophyte angler can catch fish like an old pro.
It is the rare angler who didn't start their fishing career by catching bream, primarily bluegill and redear sunfish (shellcrackers). In bream, some anglers found all they ever wanted in a fish. These panfish are abundant, strong fighters for their size, usually willing to bite, and taste great when rolled in corn meal and deep-fried. Other anglers succumb to peer pressure over the years, and let the prize fish of their youth take a back seat to more glamorous species.
Whether you have stayed faithful to your first love or are pining to return to the simpler days of your fishing youth, a bream bed is synonymous with good fishing. When it comes to matters of procreation, bream are a gregarious sort. Instead of finding their own little love nest, they join in with their friends and neighbors to form colonies of individual spawning nests.
Sometimes bream construct their nests so closely to each other that the edges almost touch, but more typically, each nest is separated from its neighbors by a foot or two of unoccupied ground. This aggregate of spawning nests is known as a bream bed.
In all but the dingiest water, finding a bream bed is easy. Just use your eyes. Bream fan out a shallow depression in which to lay their eggs. Once the nest is fanned clean, the saucer-like depression often appears as a light spot on an otherwise dark background. Put together 50 or 100 of these individual nests, and the result is a pockmarked bottom that is hard to miss, once you know what to look for.
Bream typically form their spawning colonies in 2 to 6 feet of water over a firm bottom. If there are a few stumps around, that is better. Protected shorelines are favored over windswept ones.
So now that we know why, where, and how to find a bream bed, the big question is when. Many sunfish species are multiple spawners, meaning they complete several spawning cycles each year.In the South, the first spawn is likely to be in April, and you may find bedding fish as late as Labor Day. Lest Mother Nature make it too easy though, bream don't spawn continuously throughout that time. For a few days every month, you expect to find bream hard on the beds. A bed that is a flurry of activity one day can be deserted just a week later, only to come back to life again when the time gets right.
So, when is the time right? Expert bream anglers have a quick answer for that question, and the answer is when the moon is full. These anglers bet their success on the firm belief that the best bream fishing is done on that moon phase. If all the other conditions are right, a full moon pulls bream onto the beds where they are easy pickings. Other conditions must be met though, including temperature and photoperiod (day length). Bream don't spawn in cold water, and they don't spawn in the middle of winter, when just a few hours of weak sunshine makes for a day.
Once the water is from 65 to 70 degrees, and the longer days of spring have arrived, the bream are ready to go. The last ingredient needed is the full moon. The moon is an extremely powerful force in the life of all living things. Although just like the sun, it rises, passes overhead and then sets every day with nary a thought from us, to a wild creature the forces of nature are not overshadowed by a clock, calendar or any other human contrivance that tracks the passing of time.
Lest you doubt the moon's power, keep in mind that the moon's gravitational pull is the driving force behind ocean tides all across the globe. If a force is strong enough to influence something so incomprehensibly immense as the planet's oceans, then it likely affects every living thing on the planet too.
In legend and lore, many strange things are purported to happen on the full moon.
People turn into werewolves on a full moon. Delivery rooms are filled with women giving birth on the full moon. Murder and suicide rates skyrocket on a full moon. Plant your garden on the proper moon phase as described in the almanacs, and you will harvest a bumper crop.
None of these have been definitively proven to be true. On the other hand, science hasn't been able to completely disprove the theory that the moon does, to some extent, influence the lives of all creatures.
Scientific studies of sunfish spawning haven't singled out the moon phase as a primary factor of when the fish choose to spawn. Instead, the focus has been on temperature and other basic requirements. Still, as any experienced angler can attest, anecdotal evidence suggests that the moon is very important. Generally speaking, four days before and a few days after the full moon, bream are at the peak of spawning activity.
When bream are on the beds, they throw all caution to the wind and defend their territory against all comers. The complete focus on completing the task at hand, and the rambunctious approach to it, is what makes bedding bream so much fun.
Related Resources
Your Guide to Virginia's Bream Fishing
Georgia's Overlooked Reservoir Bream
South Carolina's Top Bream Waters
Not to say bream can't be caught when they aren't spawning. Probing the deeper water and structure near a deserted spawning colony can result in good catches of panfish biding their time and feeding while waiting for the next full moon.
There is really no wrong way to fish for bedding bream. Put nearly anything in front of their nose, and it is likely to get eaten. Even tossing in a shiny bare hook may draw a strike.
Catching bream on a bare hook may be fun to try just so you can brag to your friends you have done it, but if filling a stringer is your goal, a couple of techniques are sure fire winners. A nickel-sized float, a few BB split shot, and a small Aberdeen hook is a rig both simple and deadly effective. Crickets make excellent bait, as do red wigglers. Weight the float so it just barely stays on the surface. This cuts down on the resistance the fish feels when it takes the bait, and better detects light nibbles.
If you prefer artificial lures, a small Beetle Spin can be just as effective as live bait. Start casting to the outer edges of the bream bed, and then work your way into the heart of the spawning area. A fly rod is also a great way to catch bedding bream. A 5-weight outfit and a handful of small popping bugs and sponge spiders are all you need. Don't worry if your fly-fishing abilities aren't trout stream caliber. Instead of being put off by a fly slamming down right on top of their heads like a rising trout might be, an obnoxious, in-your-face presentation often draws an immediate strike from bedding bream.
For all their aggressiveness though, there is one way to ruin a good bream bed, and that is to get too close. Bedding bream may have loving on the mind, but they haven't completely lost all of their senses. Get too close, and they spook, especially in clear water.
Sometimes when searching for active beds, not spooking them is almost impossible. By the time that you see the beds, the fish have seen you. No problem, just mark the location and continue on your search. When you have found enough beds to provide a day's angling, you can return to the first one, and the fish will have returned once they settled down. Many anglers prefer to anchor their boat a good cast away from the bed just to ensure they don't drift too close while fishing.
Although catching bedding bream can be like taking candy from a baby, don't worry about taking home your legal limit. Bream are extremely prolific spawners, and their numbers need to be kept in check to prevent overpopulation and stunting. Keeping some fish not only provides you the main course for a meal fit for a king, it also helps ensure you have nice, stout bream to catch on future trips, not little bait-stealing runts.
http://www.gameandfishmag.com/crappi.../gf_aa056603a/
And one from Game&Fish:
Targeting bream when they are spawning offers fast action and plenty of fun. But it cannot begin until you find the bedding areas!
By William J. Bohica
Photo by Terry Jacobs
Panfish are not the most glamorous of the game fish. But it's a pretty good bet that the various "bream" species are what most of us began our angling careers in pursuit of. Irrespective of the number of glamour species we have captured, bream always seem to drag us back into their world.
Even the most jaded angler still finds a spark of excitement when a fat bluegill, shellcracker, redbreast, green sunfish or any other pint-sized member of the clan latches onto a bait or lure presented on a willowy cane pole or ultra-light spinning rig. Get into a bunch of these fish, where you are getting virtually a fish per cast, and even the most accomplished angler can get caught up in the fever. A bonus of the action is that all of these panfish species are delectable on the table, making more than a few anglers relish the thought of heading out to their favorite panfish-catching spot.
Getting in on the fun, however, requires a bit of knowledge about bream. Most panfish species are primarily insect eaters and spend a lot of time in shallow water. Although the biggest members of the species do spend a large amount of time in deeper waters, even they make forays to the weeds to feed. Even at those times, the larger fish are normally scattered, and it's a matter of picking up one here and there.
Shellcrackers, however, are not nearly as dependent on forage found in vegetation as other panfish are, because insects are not a significant part of their diet. Their preferred food sources are found in deeper water. Scuba diving studies on some small, clear lakes have found that the vast majority of the adult shellcrackers spend most of their time well offshore and away from weeds or grass. That information also corroborates data gathered through electro-fishing sampling. Numerous studies have shown that the only time appreciable numbers of mature shellcrackers are in the shallows is during the spawning period.
Not surprisingly, creel data also indicates that the spawn is when anglers experience their best harvest for all panfish species. Find a spawning bed infested with bream and the fun begins! But it can take some work to achieve that goal.
Timing the spawn is a key to filling the cooler with shellcrackers, and that is dependent upon water temperature and moon phase.
The first spawn of the year normally occurs when the water temperature hits 75 to 77 degrees. Depending upon locale, that can be anywhere from mid-March to June. After that, subsequent spawns occur regularly throughout the summer, and bream have been observed bedding as late as October.
Water temperature obviously plays a role in the beginning of the spawning cycle, and it likely plays a role during the final spawn of the year. The moon phase is equally important in that it determines when maximum spawning activity occurs within that temperature range.
The first spawn of the year almost always occurs on the full moon nearest the time the optimum water temperature first occurs. Some bream, particularly bluegills and shellcrackers, spawn around the new moon during the summer, when water temperature are well above the minimum spawning range. But the preponderance of the data shows that the period extending from one week prior to the full moon to one week after the full moon sees the strongest activity. This is definitely when most creel surveys show the highest per-hour catch rates.
Expert bream anglers narrow that time frame down even farther -- to a few days before the full moon to three or four days after the full moon.
Males, which are normally larger than the females, show up first to cruise an area, stake out territory, and begin fanning beds. This usually starts a week before the full moon, and it may take that full week before the females move in to join them. During this "cruising period," the males are often reluctant to bite. Once the females show up, however, the action can get hot.
Anglers who visually locate bream on a shallow bed but cannot get many to hit are well advised to return to that spot several days later. It is likely that they found a group of males moving in and the bite will turn on once the females join them.
While the moon phase for maximum activity stays consistent throughout the summer spawning season, where the bream bed does not. The first spawns of the year are the shallowest, because skinny water hits the key temperature first. The prime early-season spawning sites are usually in 2 to 3 feet of water and normally on hard sand or shell bottom with no vegetation. The majority of the time, it is easy to locate shallow beds using a pair of polarized sunglasses.
As the water warms through the summer, bream normally move their spawning sites to deeper waters away from vegetation. These deeper beds can often include both bluegills and shellcrackers, which are known to crossbreed. These areas are predominantly open-water patches of hard- bottom sand in the 4- to 6-foot depth range. On some clear lakes, late-season bream have been known to spawn as deep as 9 feet. Though this is too deep to see the beds in most waters, there are some tricks that you can use to help you find them.
A quality topographical map of the lake can help put you in the neighborhood. Then pinning down the exact spot is the key, and sometimes that can be as easy as taking a deep breath. There are anglers who swear they can smell the fishy odor of bedding bream. If the wind is calm, this can get you close.
The first spawn of the year normally occurs when the water temperature hits 75 to 77 degrees. Most panfish on the bed will hit mini-jigs and small spinners, but shellcrackers rarely do. They want meat, and the most consistent producer is an earthworm, followed by grass shrimp. Those baits also appeal to all other panfish, as do crickets. It can pay to have a selection of baits on hand and offer a variety until the fish show a preference. This is especially important when fishing deeper summer beds, where you won't know the species of the bream until you start catching some.
Tackle needs are not complex for bream. For shallow beds in vegetation that is heavy enough to allow the fish to be approached closely without spooking, a cane pole rigged with a No. 8 or 6 long-shank hook, a small split shot six inches above that, and a 2 1/2-inch slender oblong float will make up a very effective rig.
In clearer water, especially if the fish are bedding in open sand holes within a grassbed, getting a boat close enough for the cane pole may spook them. In this situation, savvy anglers shift the same terminal tackle to a 6- or 7-foot light-action spinning rig with 6- to 8-pound line.
These can be tossed a comfortable distance, and the cork lets you know that your bait is right on the bottom where it needs to be. If the first cast has it floating straight up and down, the sinker is not on the bottom and you do not truly know where the bait actually is. If it is lying on its side there is too much line on the bottom and strikes may be missed.
Adjust the float depth so the float is leaning at a 45-degree angle. That shows the split shot is just kissing the bottom -- and kicking up a little silt -- as the bait eases along behind it. That sinker brushing the bottom can be a major strike trigger for bedding bream, and the proper float depth can make a difference in your catch.
For deeper beds, dispense with the float, add just enough split shot to maintain contact with the bottom, and slowly twitch the bait along.
http://www.gameandfishmag.com/fishin...ng/RA_0505_03/
Nobody said they did!?!?
The other thing to take into consideration is how a certain population of fish adapts to it's normal local condiitons. One lake we fish a lot is managed for bluegill and you usually had to go to at least 15 feet to pick up larger breeders because of water clarity. Now the lake is getting murkier and we're generally picking them up a few feet less than that.
The lake we fish for crappie is extremely murky from suspended algae, with visibility of less than eight inches on a good day. ODNR feels that part of the problem is an overpopulation of gizzard shad, so they've been introducing saugeye as another predator. It will be interesting to see how habits change as the water clears. In theory, the rate at which the water heats up will change and with it, the timing of the typical spawn. - Roberta
in the past we always used the first full moon in may as an indicator the brim was bedding. after the spawn, wed move on to something else. I dint know till this year that they bedded all through the summer and could be caught on the beds several days before and several days after the full moon. i had a friend tell me about the full moon summer spawns and i fished a couple of em this summer and it was a blast. you can see the beds and the fish hanging on em. the bite was fast and furious and im gonna work em over next summer on the full moons if im still living..... after they left the beds, you could fish the deeper water and still catch em, but not as fast as when they bedding.