Wingham Fish-in Report

[Alan Stubbs]

Reminds me of one of the late Dick Emery's characters (I've forgotten her name) who'd say "You are awful, but I do like you!"

 

 

It was Mandy!

[jedibond]

Congratulations to Leon, and well-deserved too!

 

Provisional dates for 2008 are Saturday May 17th to Monday May 19th.

 

Cool, booked the time off in my calendar already

[dant]

Steve I'll email/send you all the digital photos including the tails of the bream. Do you have access to a decent photoquality printer i don't really though i could go to boots...? Any idea about the rough pine cone effect the scales of one bream but not the other? You can clearly see the difference in the tail pics of the bream i'll post them later tonight.

 

Rich

 

Having unfortunately never seen the water, or the fish in question I'm hazarding a guess that the rough 'pine cone' effect could have something to do with the formation of spawing tubercles.

These are restricted to the males and generally occur on or towards the head of the fish. I think the roughness is to do with the the tubercles not fully coming through on the remainder of the body.

[Steve Burke]

Thanks to one and all for the replies.

Edited May 23, 2007 by Steve Burke

[Anthony78]

Any chance those people who managed to catch could describe rigs and bait please. It may just help those that are lucky enough to go next year.

Thanks

Anthony

[lyn]

Well it seems, as always, a good time was had by all. Great pics, thanks for posting them so that we that couldn't make it could see what you had been catching.

 

 

lyn

[Kappa]

Any chance those people who managed to catch could describe rigs and bait please. It may just help those that are lucky enough to go next year.

Thanks

Anthony

 

Of course! Sorry for the poor quality pics but I haven't found the charger for my camera yet so they are taken on my olr crappy mobile!

 

My rigs were 50g black cap maggot feeders on a 1.5m readymade leadcore ESP helicopter rig. Here are all the components:

To this, using an ESP oval loop attached by a quick release clip (this is important) I had a 6 or 7 inch 10lb drennan microbraid hooklength with a size 8 (I think) fox wide gape carp hook. Attached to a tiny hair was a maggot clip baited with 3 fake and 4 real red maggots, I use shrink tube to make a "line aligner type rig":

I then made a "dynamite stick" with a mix of swimstim green groundbait, crushed hemp, bloedmeal and a few micropellets. Before casting I take off the hooklength and thread this inside the dynamite stick with a long bating needle and attach the PVA stocking to the quick release swivel too at the other end I nick the hook through the side of the stocking to keep the hooklength tight and to stop tangles. See pics:

And it’s ready to cast:

 

One of the most important things is to use a line clip on the reel to aid accurate casting. Use a marker float to find a good spot to fish there are articles on AN on how to do this well! I found the bottom of the bar in front of me using a marker float then I cast my empty feeder to the same spot put the line in the clip and tie on a stop knot on to (not in) the mainline so I can clip up again. I then use this rod to spod out my groundbait which was hemp, micropellets swim stim and bloedmeal in a really dry mix so it doesn't stick in the spod. I usually don't put anything too substantial in the spod mix, I just want lots of smell and a small amount of food so they take my bait first, if you put loads of maggots or corn in then the chances of the fish finding yours is slim especially in low density waters like Wingham. The only maggots I put in were in my feeders.

 

It is very important to take the line off the clip after casting the rig proper or you'll lose your rods when you get a good run. When you catch a fish just cast away from your swim until you reach the stop knot and put the line back in the clip for the next cast, if you are just recasting remember to put the line back in the clip before reeling in! Don't forget to make a mental note of a point on the far bank to cast to especially one you can see in the dark like a silhouette of far bank tree tops.

 

I took Steve's advice and use very long drop heavy bobbins (they had around 10 swan shot and a ledger clipped to them!), as you can see in Medwaygreens photo the rods are set very high.

At night don't strike until your are certain it is not a line bite, i.e. when the fish is taking line or you could spook the bream and ruin your chances! During the day I struck at anything I thought was a bite often before the fish was taking line as I didn't think the bream would be feeding. Actually I wouldn't recommend using helirigs due to the number of drop back bites you get with them. Next year (assuming I'm allowed back) I'll be using inline feeders so that whichever direction the fish moves it pulls the bobbin up.

 

Does that all make sense? This isn't an advert for any particular tackle company its just my local tackle shop mainly stocks drennan and ESP stuff there is almost certainly similar (and probably cheaper) versions around!

 

Having written this all down I think I need to go and look at my mk iv Avon and centrepin, what have I become !

 

Rich

[Kappa]

Having unfortunately never seen the water, or the fish in question I'm hazarding a guess that the rough 'pine cone' effect could have something to do with the formation of spawing tubercles.

These are restricted to the males and generally occur on or towards the head of the fish. I think the roughness is to do with the the tubercles not fully coming through on the remainder of the body.

 

They weren't tubercles, the male fish did have these also but this roughtness to the fish was one every scales as if it had thickened like a pine cone. I have seen this before on big bream. Here are some pics of the breams tails you should be able to see what I mean!

 

Pine cone like male:

 

Smooth scaled female

 

Anyone got any ideas?

 

Rich

[dant]

I think it's definitely something to do with spawning.. If it's not a form of tubercle, which I don't think it is now having seen the photos I think it looks a little like it could possibly be a parasite of some kind. I know that male Bream are susceptible to parasites around spawning time...

I think we need a fishery biologist on the case here - and thats not me I'm afraid, all I can do is take pot shots at it!!

 

I would be interested to find out what was behind this rough scaling on your Bream, Richard.

 

Anyone?

[Steve Burke]

I've had a word with Bruno Broughton about the pine cone effect. As soon as he has time he's going to look at this topic and comment.