Posted on behalf of George:

quote:

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I am going to try fishing for bream using a worm on a ledger rig but don't know what type of rig to use. M'm going fishing in Ely on the River Ouse.

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Don't really do bream fishing. But I think the best way to catch them is with a cage feeder with ground bait and maggots in. Don't quote me.

Good luck

The majority of bream anglers use a paternoster rig with a groundbait feeder.
Most use a long hooklength up to 4 or even 5 foot long.
Running ledgers also work as does laying on with a waggler or a pole method such as the flat float.
Bream prefer a static bait pinned to the bottom most of the time.
A groundbait mix of 70% brown crumb with 30% fishmeal mixed with either or a mix of : brasem, nutrimino, csl liquid, braddocks bream magic or braddocks sugar and spice can work.
Put some hookbaits in the mix but not to many as you need to get them searching through the carpet of grounbait for food.
Bream love groundbait, espically brown crumb.
Hookbaits : sweetcorn, caster, red maggot, worm, pellet, pinkie, squats or breadflake.
Bream love a cocktail ie two baits.
Worm tipped with caster OR breadflake tipped with worm / maggot or caster OR worm tipped with a maggot.

Try to find out where the bream are being caught from as they will be tightly shouled up during the winter.

Mild spells tend to be the best.

If you do get or find feeding bream DO NOT ball in any groundbait on top of them as they do not like it and will shy away.

If bites dry up take off the feeder and use a bomb. Every few casts put the feeder back on to get some bait amoungst them.

Good basic rule is to cast out a feeder full and wait 20 mins or so. If you don't get a bite then it is fairly safe to assume there is no shoal there.
You can then either try a different spot or put about 15 feeder fulls out, keeping them pretty tight together, clipping up will help you here.
I dont like long hooklinks as I find that many fish are deep hooked having swallowed the hook before you even see the bite, the best hooking rig I have used is a 4inch hooklink.

Den

Den makes a good point.Long hook links are traditional with Bream and Ive never had a problem with baits like bread flake but with worms and to a lesser extent corn you can have a lot of problems with deep hooking.See the worms for carp thread.

In the lake i fish the bream vary in size, me and my mates all go fishing togther for carp but the only thing that i seem to catch bream so i now fish for bream as i can catch them my biggest is 9lb 9oz and i have cought all my bream on a method feeder and a hair rig in the method feeder i would put bread crumb with tiger nut oil and on the hair rig i would put 3 or 4 bits of corn and i have always could a good size bream off this bait

If Elton doesn't mind me advertising another site, have a look at 'Rigs' on
www.tenchfishers.com

Poledark's advice is spot on: open-ended feeder with a short hook link and cast a dozen feederfulls of whatever to get some bait in.

I don't know your river, but on the Yorks Ouse, location is the key factor.
The shoals don't tend to move about as much at this time of year, and even in summer, there are certain stretches that the bream seem to patrol more than others.

As far as rigs, I agree to an extent with the short hook length, (though I prefer 6-8ins). But it also depends on the bait, and the number of fish present.
One of the best baits on the Yorks Ouse is lobworm, and I will go a bit longer with the hook length when using that.
Another additive that I always use in my groundbait is crushed roasted hemp.
It works for me up here so I hope it will work for you.

John.