Recently, Lakes Entrance Waterway has become the home to some of the biggest bream in East Gippsland with many fish about. Victorian bream tournament participants report top catches around the local wharves and flats that are spread throughout Cunningham Arm, North Arm and Reeves Channel.

Casting is critical. The better the cast, the more bites you’re going to get. This is when learning to skip cast is worth its weight in gold, as it opens up a wide range of spots and fish that you could previously could not reach.

Be prepared to lose a fair bit of gear. Not every battle around barnacles covered wharves ends well. It can end up being quite annoying. That’s part and parcel of doing this. As you have trips out to fish docks, you will begin to learn how best to extract these big bream from the wharves.

The biggest tip I can give you is this: don’t work the rod when you hook a fish, but slowly lead the fish out of the wharf using an electric motor or by walking the fish towards a clearer area. Then begin the fight again and set up your tackle beforehand. It’s always safer to start with 8lb line and work your way down to 3lb if you’re not getting bites.

The Cranka Crab has been one of the most popular lures for this technique. Other lures likes Tiemco Stick Minnow and Gulp Crabby have produced great fish too. For those who baitfish, peeled prawns and spider crabs have been some of the best baits. Fish them lightly and allow them to slowly sink around wharves.

The lake has been fishing very consistently with good numbers of flathead and bream spreading throughout the system. The most productive area has been the low reaches of the Nowa Nowa Arm around the glasshouse. Heading towards the island, work a combination of structures from sand flats to deeper timbered edges, as these usually produce the goods when searching for a bit of fun on the lakes.

Bait fishing has been extremely productive with local anglers using lightly weighted prawns and shrimp drifted around the snaggy edges that are dotted throughout the Nowa Nowa and Toorloo arms.

During the past month, large schools of baitfish have started to show up in the lake system and offshore, meaning the Australian salmon and other pelagics are on the move. Recent reports have shown good numbers of Australian salmon and tailor on the odd calmer day. Rat kingfish have been seen working baitfish along the beach with a few lucky anglers managing to land these hard-fighting fish.

Most commonly, this mix of pelagic species has been targeted spinning with 15-25g metal lures. Other natural baitfish lures are getting the job done too.

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