To fish or to work - unfortunately very few people get to do both, so when the chance to wet a line comes along we had best take it.

Now I've heard a lot about the Bream fishing in West Lakes, which is a man made lake in the western suburbs of Adelaide down Port Adelaide way, but I've never fished there until just recently.  The chance came along to grab a day off so armed with my 4 kilogram spinning outfit, some Bream lures, a few flies, and some green prawns for bait I set off to see what I could find ... I have soon-to-be in-laws living near by so I headed down Military Road toward Football Park (or what ever it's called these days ... not a big fan of football) to see where I could wet a line.

The lake itself is easy to get to and as there is no boating on the lake apart from several rowing clubs, you don't have to worry about getting mown down by a boat or jet ski.

Near the rowing club boat house on Military Road is a car park which is right along the lake edge.  This is good for me as I'm becoming somewhat of a lazy angler.  Heading around the lake it's not hard to find a spot that looks fishy and a nice rocky outcrop of boulders looked like the very spot.

Small Bream lures with a good swimming action seem to work well.  Casting and retrieving along side the rocks quickly saw a few hits followed up by some nice little Bream on the bank.  These days I practice catch and release so back they went.

Moving further around and trying a fly at the next lot of rocks only saw one Bream pulled in, but a guy standing there said that a rowing team had been through training not long before I got there, so that may have been why.

It seems that almost anywhere around the edge that you can get to is a good spot to try.  I've heard that not only Bream but small Mulloway, Mullet and several other fish species can be caught in the lake as it opens out into Port River near Grand Junction Road.  I also heard you get the odd bigish fish coming up into the lake.

Green prawn tails worked best for me while I was there and at this time they out fished the lures and flies, but it could have been the day too.

For a good few hours of easy fishing or a place to take the kids, West Lakes seems like the place to go and you just need a light spining outfit of 2 or 4 kilos.

While I was there I saw a guy fishing from a kayak which apparently is allowed on the lake.  This would let you cover a lot of water and fish some of the pontoons that you can't get to from the shore.  Maybe it's a trip for another day ...