Latest session - Bream from Linear

[Anthony78]

Hi Guy's,

Thought I'd share my latest session with you and although it wasn't a great success in as far as I didn't catch the intended species, it was a big learning curve for me and it would also be good to hear some views from the more experienced members,and anyone else, on whether you would have approached it differently.

 

The plan:

After the warm spell we experienced a few weeks back I was eager to get out and do some gravel pit tench fishing. Due to a booked holiday in Greece I won't be putting my name down for a place at the Wingham fish-in this year where I would usually get my tench fix so I had to go elsewhere for my tinca high.

 

Typically the British weather, being as it is, had other ideas and the warm spell didn't last. I'd already booked the time off work so I had to make the best of the situation. Thinking that the recent cold snap would put off the tench a change of target species was in order. Usually when I'm fishing at Wingham the bream are an afterthought because they are so difficult to target due to their low numbers and nomadic nature. On this trip they would be the intended species with the tench coming into play if conditions turned favourable. Now I have no experience of fishing for specimen bream so this would be a big learning curve for me.

 

The venue was to be the Linear complex and after doing some homework and a little help from Roy Parsons (head bailiff) it was to be Smiths/Hardwick lake which contains bream to 15lb and tench to double figures. Having never fished this venue before and knowing nothing of the features I could only rely on watercraft and information from the other anglers. I arrived at around 11am on Tuesday morning and after a circuit of the lake and chatting to other anglers I was none the wiser as to where to go, no bream had been caught and I saw no fish activity. There was a north westerly wind blowing into one bank and with no other information to go on this would be my starting area.

 

Bait/Tactics

After searching the area with the marker rod I found that there was already a lot of weed present but there was an area just past a large weed bed which was completely clear. As this was around 50 yards it was probably a comfortable casting distance for the average carper and had probably been kept clear by fish feeding on the regular bait going in on the spot. I wasn't after the carp which would probably keep away from an area so blatant but I was hoping that the bream would see this as an easy meal. 2 rods would be placed over a large spread of bait on this area. The 3rd rod would be placed at the bottom of the marginal shelf in 11 ft of water hoping that a bonus tench would come along.

 

It's difficult to know how much bait to take but the thought of having a red letter session only to run out is a situation I hope to never find myself in. I would be leaving most of it in the car anyway so would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. In total I had around 20 kilo but only planned on using a fraction of this unless it really switched on.

For the bream I'd be feeding a groundbait mix of 50/50 fishmeal and black crumb. Into this I added dead maggots/pellets/corn and a few 10mm tutti fruiti boilies as a target bait. I put roughly 2 kilo over a 10ft square area using the spomb (brilliant tool!!) hoping that the wide spread would keep bream in the area but not have them feeding so tightly together that I'd be plagued by line bites or spook the shoal should I hook one.

Over this I would place 2 method feeders ensuring that they landed on the nearside edge of the feed. This would hopefully allow me to pick off the fish on the edge of the shoal without spooking its mate's. One was baited with a tutti fruiti boilie while the second was baited with a stack of corn with a fake piece under the bait stop.

 

For the tench I put all my faith in red maggots and had a gallon of them. Normally I would use the large drennan maggot feeders but as there was quite a bit of weed at the bottom of the near shelf I decided on a bolt rig fished in a PVA bag of grubs. This would hopefully sit on top of the weed until a tench came along.

 

The session:

I had to wait until 9pm before I had a bite which came to the tutti fruiti. unfortunately it was from the wrong species, a carp of 16lb gave a good account of itself on my 1 3/4lb rods but was not what I was after. I quickly slipped it back and got into the sleeping bag for the night. At 2am I was awoken by a couple of bleeps on the same rod which had me perched on the edge of my bedchair. Suddenly the swinger smacked against the rod and I was in again. Once again though it was a carp, this time a very small fish of around 4lb. I recast the rod and settled back into the bag, and remained undisturbed until the following morning. Talking to the other anglers on the lake there were still no bream showing but there was the odd tench coming out.

I was called to witness a 9lb fish which completely blew me away. It was huge! It looked to be empty of spawn and would easily make double figures later in the season.

 

Absolute beauty of a tench which unfortunately wasn't caught by me

 

Wednesday went by quietly apart from yet another carp of just over 13lb which was an absolute cracker. Very close to being a leather but had a single line of scales over it's back. You can't be disappointed catching fish like this but still, I was after bream and these were still alluding me.

 

These linear fish are beauties

 

By this point the inside line had showed no action and not only this but the coot, which was nesting in the tree next to me, had spotted the bait and was constantly picking up the rig which surely would have put off any feeding tench. As the guy next to me had caught his tench out in open water I decided to change to my favoured maggot feeder rig and placed this on to the bream line also.

Having no other information to go on, plus the fact that there weren't a lot of swim choices, I decided to stick with the swim I was in. Linear in a busy place even in the week!

As there had obviously been some activity in the swim I decided to top up with another 2 kilo's of groundbait/particles. I also changed the hookbaits, one onto a 10mm fishmeal boilie and the second onto half a Cell dunbell tipped with a piece of white plastic corn. Putting the kettle on and settling down for some grub of my own I was set for the evening.

 

After feeding myself I decided to get my head down for an early night only to be woken just after midnight to a 6 inch screamer. Getting out of the bag I put my head torch on to see what was happening, when I looked at the rod tip I could see that it was tapping slightly. As the indicator hadn't dropped back again I was certain that it wasn't a liner so decided to hit it. Right away I felt a big head shake and knew it was a decent fish. Unfortunately it had just too much power to be my target species but all the same I took it easy and after a long tussle I had a very nice carp in the net.

 

Looking like it could be over 20lb I got the weighing gear out and got the camera ready. It was another beautiful looking fish and on the scales she took the needle round to 28lb 12oz, a new PB and I was well chuffed!

 

A new PB and although not the target species I was still very happy

 

 

The remainder of the night was uneventful and so too was the following morning until around 11am when I finally got a bite on the maggot feeder. Straight away I knew it was a tench and after a very scrappy fight he was in the net. My first gravel pit tench of 2012. At 5lb 12oz it was not going to break any records but at last something had gone to plan.

 

First gravel pit tench of 2012

 

Apart from another couple of mid double carp to the method feeders the next 24 hours were very quiet and the wind had now swung around to a North Easterly direction and although the sun was shining it suddenly felt very cold.

I'd done 72 hours in one spot and although I'd had some great sport I'd not caught, or seen, a single bream. During the very long process of packing up I had a couple of bleeps on the maggot feeder and as I approached the rod to investigate the alarm suddenly sprang into life and I was into another tench. This one was a female and on the scales she went exactly the same as the male at 5lb 12oz.

 

Same size but this time the female of the species

 

Because I was packing up I didn't bother to put this rod back out and continued the laborious task of packing up the rest of my gear. As I was loading the rest of my kit on the barrow a couple of guy's, who had been fishing the point swim, were heading back to the car. On this occasion I really wish I hadn't gone with the 'any good?' comment because I got the reply “nah just an 8lb snottie!”. Now ordinarily I wouldn't be interested in such a capture but as there are only a handful of bream in the lake with a shoal containing a variety of sized fish I was now faced with a decision. Do I call it quits and head home happy that I have caught some nice fish or do I go for another 24 hours in an area where I know the bream have been caught.

 

As I had nothing to get back home for (one of the advantages of being single) I decided to go for it.

To cut a long story short (well this bit anyway!) I baited in a similar way to how I'd attacked the first swim and once again put 2 method feeders over the top. Unfortunately I didn't have a single bleep and had to pack up for a second time in 24 hours. Walking back to the car I was told that one of the carpers fishing 'Summers bay' had caught 3 slabs in the night. He had 2 fish of around 8lb but did not weigh them. He did weigh the 3rd though and at 13 1/2lb, to say I was gutted was an understatement but hey this is fishing and each time we go we learn something new so I added the information of this capture to the memory bank and headed home for some very welcome creature comforts.

 

If you've made it this far then thank you for reading as I know it was a very long report. I would certainly like to hear from you guy's. Especially if you think I should have approached the session differently as, like I mentioned earlier, I am by no means an expert when it comes to bream and am happy to listen to any comments/ideas you may have.

 

Regards

 

Ant

[Dales]

A nice report and some cracking fish.

[John Weddup]

Well done Anthony.

 

Thanks for taking the time to add a very interesting thread and a good read the first thread on here thats interesting for a long time.

 

I think you did everything right on first read but will read it again later.

 

I had a red letter day for bream in a gravel pit this weekend but no monsters just good size fish. I used sweetcorn as bait like you 2 real and one false.

 

I put the false one nearest the hook on the hair as it stops the others coming off better, You will the hair works like a cheesewire cutting through the real corn on a big chuck.

 

All the bream I have caught the last 3 weeks have been well tuberculed getting ready for spawning albeit too cold yet. the males, as usual when like this, have fought more like tench.

 

Well done a session sounding just like my weekends

 

John

[John Weddup]

Anthony

 

the other thing I have done lately is looked closer at carp rigs and bait for the bigger bream. I have sourced materials to allow tying of rigs with smaller hooks.

 

To this end I started to use more boilies but have not had any real good success until this weekend. The difference has been frozen instead of shelf life boilies. Because I was experimenting over the last year it has been very easy to buy various colours sizes flavours etc and keep them with me and try.

 

A carp angler a few weeks ago said he would not use such muck. He would rather use a halibut pellett.

 

This got me thinking but kept forgetting to get myself sorted until saturday afternoon one of the few other anglers present gave me some home made "Cell" boilies to try.

 

I quickly got one of the bigger bream of the session and swapped all 3 rods to cell. I caught well and all bigger fish. I think 2 things have happened one better bait and also now using the most popular carp bait going in.

 

The bream must see loads of free offerings of carp boilies so choosing what the carpers use is a good plan.

 

John

[Dave H]

Great for you to have taken the time to wright the report. Well done mate!

[Kappa]

Great session Ant! Will reply with more comments later!

 

Rich

[tincatinca]

Cracking session Ant and well deserved.

[Phone]

Ant.,

 

Great job.

 

John,

 

What's a "cell" boilie?

 

Phone

[John Weddup]

Ant.,

 

Great job.

 

John,

 

What's a "cell" boilie?

 

Phone

 

 

Cell is the flavour of the boilie. I guess you know what a boilie is its a round softish type bait.

 

John

[madtom-86]

Ant, great report and you have given me abit of an insight to linear which im planning to head over and try in the next couple of weeks. can you use barbed hooks or is it barbless only? I have googled and youtubed linear but they havent helped me find the answer. I hope i manage to do half as well as you did when i go but i will be targeting carp.