Big bream

[John Weddup]

Hi Richard

 

on the reservoir I concentrated on there is no night fishing so it was a daytime job and predictably the dull wet days were best.

 

When we had brighter days and fancied a look round we often went on a large road bridge over one end of the reservoir. The water is approx 20ft deep and the bream were seen in large numbers just milling around a few feet under the surface.

 

They occasionally came to the surface but not often so you would not have seen this from the bank.

 

regards

 

john

[Anderoo]

Or how lucky you are ...

 

I don't think I'll ever stop tinkering but I'm pretty sure I know what I'll be doing this season

 

I've got a question for you bream experts, in lakes where are the bream during the day when they aren't feeding? The thread with Betty got me thinking, if bream are feeding at night on shallow water what are they up to during the day?

 

Rich

 

There's nothing lucky about putting a bait in the right spot at Wingham!

 

Good question though. I've seen small shoal bream basking under the surface on hot summer days (like John), both in pits and drains - just hanging there doing literally nothing. Whether they stay in the same area to feed after dark is another question.

 

A further question is, do huge bream behave the same way as shoal bream?

 

Perhaps at Wingham, if you could get high enough on a hot day, all would be revealed. If I did ever see the bream in the daytime, I would certainly fish near that area overnight. I guess you'd have to pick the nearest spot that looked fishable and manage to bait up without spooking them.

 

EDIT: The other thing that I now consider crucial (again after speaking to Alex) is the ability to catch more than one fish at a time. The 'once a season' rule seems to be holding up these days and it makes sense to try to capitalise on it when it's your turn. Again, it must be down to absolutely perfect feeding - and trying not to catch anything until that small group of fish are really feeding hard on your bait. Catch one early on and you're not going to get a second chance. So you want the things you use as hookbaits the last things to be eaten.

Edited January 27, 2009 by Anderoo

[John Weddup]

Hi Anderoo

 

regarding your edited paragraph at bottom of last post I am not sure I fully understand.

 

Could you please try and expand it a little for an old suffolk boy.

 

regards

 

John

[Anderoo]

Hi Anderoo

 

regarding your edited paragraph at bottom of last post I am not sure I fully understand.

 

Could you please try and expand it a little for an old suffolk boy.

 

regards

 

John

 

Hi John

 

I'll try! If you fish Wingham a reasonable number of times in a season, you can expect the bream to turn up once. That's your only chance to catch one (this is probably true of other big bream waters too). Location is notoriously difficult, with luck playing a big part! So, when you get your chance it's best to try to catch more than one.

 

The fish travel around in small groups rather than big shoals. What probably happens is - at night - a small group of fish comes across a baited spot (assuming the bait has been put in well ahead of them arriving, and is evenly distributed, not balls of groundbait here and there), have a look and wander off. Later on, they'll come back, maybe have a little mouthful and go again. Each time they revisit, they'll have a little more food until their confidence is really high and they're feeding competitively.

 

If you catch one early on, before they're feeding hard, the rest will spook away. It's still a result! But if you can avoid catching them until later in the night, you can catch one and the rest will carry on feeding.

 

The way to do it is to use bigger, heavier hookbaits hard on the bottom. It's likely they'll eat the smaller, lighter items first as they get stirred up by the big bodies of the fish. If you were fishing a couple of maggots on a long hooklength, you may hook one early on. A little boile, couple of bits of corn, small pellet, whatever, on a short hooklength is going to stay nailed to the bottom. As such, it'll be one of the last items left, along with other freebies in the groundbait. Another reason to use lots of different things in the groundbait mix.

 

They don't seem to mind their shoal-mates disappearing when they're really having it. You spend most of the time sitting there blanking, so may as well try for a multiple catch when you get the chance!

 

I don't claim any of the original thinking here by the way. But to me, it makes perfect sense, and is backed up by multiple catches of big bream by other anglers.

 

Andrew (old Norfolk boy )

[Dick Dastardly]

Yes Im pretty much in agreement with that as well.

[John Weddup]

Anderoo

 

thanks so much for taking the time to add such a long reply that explains it perfectly too me. Its the same principal as stick float fishing when feeding regularly for a while before catching. Getting the fish confident before removing some.

 

I maybe a daft old suffolk boy now but was born in Norfolk and probably like you proud of it.

 

kindest regards

 

John

[Anderoo]

I maybe a daft old suffolk boy now but was born in Norfolk and probably like you proud of it.

 

That oi be! Glad it made sense.

[poledark]

All getting a bit beyond me here. I would want my hookbait to be the first thing the bream eats! Without any specific knowledge as to the numbers present in the swim (maybe only one) I wouldn't want to miss my chance. How would you know when to start fishing? You may leave it to late Seems all to hypothetical to me, and assuming a deal of expertise and knowledge that can only be guessed at. How big are the shoals (?) of big bream in Wingham? has anyone any specific evidence of the numbers?

 

Is there a specific bait that a bream (big one) will "leave until last" or "until his mates are all present"? I don't think there is even a specific bait that can be relied on to be eaten in the first place, let alone one that a bream(big one) will "save until the last"

 

I picked up some bits regarding the captures of some HUGE bream a few months ago..a brace of 19's I believe, plus many over 17lbs. These started as accidental captures by carp anglers I seem to remember, but were then targetted. Has anyone any further info on methods/baits etc that may help at Wingham? Are these guys still catching? What are THEIR baiting methods? Got to be really useful knowledge I think.

 

Now this may seem highly critical, so I will offer a simple alternative,assuming you will be doing a session. Put out a large bed (spodding) of a good quality fish based pellet, a few tins of sweetcorn as well, get a good area of several yards well covered, fish two grains of plastic corn on one rod, a 10mm fish meal boilie on the other and wait. Not rocket science, both are baits that have caught big bream in other waters, using a tried and trusted method for getting fish to stop in an area and FEED. If the bream turn up

 

Den

[Anderoo]

As far as I can tell Den (from talking to other people, and the couple of times I've seen them) the shoals can be anything from a couple of fish to all of them - somewhere between 20-40 fish in total. I expect it depends on the time of year, but it seems fairly(!) clear that most of the times you're fishing for a group of, say, 3-5 fish.

 

The point about not wanting your hookbait to be the first thing they eat, is that you then won't have a chance to catch another, as the rest would have spooked away. You'd start fishing well before dark once all the groundbaiting is done - the way to avoid catching one early on is to use a heavy bait on the hook/hair, and lots of lighter items in your groundbait. It's not that a bream will 'save it until last', it's that it happens to be one of the last remaining baits. Big difference! I should point out that this isn't blue-sky thinking - it's been proven to work at Wingham. Whether it would work elsewhere - who knows?

 

It would be interesting to know more about those huge bream captures. Do you know anything about the type of water they were from? If it was a carp water where the bait is piled in 24/7 and always anglers about, there is probably not much you could take from it and apply to a water like Wingham.

 

I reckon if you put a big bed of pellet and corn, assuming the fish turn up as you say, you'd overfeed them and not catch. One of the main things I've learned so far is you need a ton of attraction and very little food. I also don't (yet!) trust plain plastic baits for bream in the same way I do for tench and carp.

[Dick Dastardly]

Im not entirely convinced (despite him having had multiple catchs) that Alex's theories (all though very interesting and well thought out) behind them are correct. But with none of my own I am going to work on the premise that they are for this season. His line of baiting that he uses is the same thinking as mine so its only "why" rather than "does" it work that Im unsure of. The rest of Alex thoughts definately fall in line with what Ive found on other waters similar to Wingham.

 

Big beds of bait (as Ive been used to using on a lot of bream waters) definately wont work at waters like Winghm (they didnt at the very similar Queenford) basicly down to this buisness of the bream very rarely (if at all) feeding in a large shoal.They may occaisionlly be seen in a shoal but I suspect that when seen like this they are definately not feeding and are most probably together pre or post spawning. (what time of year in relation to spawning time did you see the shoals Anderoo?) Im pretty convinced that every thing points to these freak bream being much more solitary than their shoaling cousins and small groups of 4 or 5 being the most that will normally feed together. (and that only by coincidence). A big bed of bait in this situation would maybe increse my chances of having more bream in front of me but seriously affect my chances of one picking up my hook bait.

 

Right heres a bit of a contentious supposition but I dont believe bream are that keen on big baits like boillies! But loads of big bream are caught on them. But I wouldnt mind betting that the waters where they have switched on to carp baits that have been going in are not particularly rich ones.I base this on the experience of "rich" waters Ive both carp and bream fished.One water that was primarily fished for carp was very rich in natural food and this made the carp very difficult to catch.Only chances came as a result of either a tempory gap in the natural food chain or purely a result of a "curiousity" pick up. The bream very rarely came out on boillies.In fact I never caught one or seen one caught despite many thousands of rod hours. Yet on traditional bream baits they were quite easy to catch.Queenford was also very rich as was TC but I never saw or heard of a bream comming out on boillies at either of these either (despite some guys intentionlly targeting the bream with boillies).

 

Carp waters I have had bream "problems" on whilst carping with boillies have always been quite "hungry" waters despite them producing some very big carp. Several of the Colne Valley waters I fished suprisingly fell in to this catagory,well after a decade or two of intensive carping anyway.

 

Another indication to this feeding trend is that the carp waters that fall in to this "naturaly hungry" catagory only started producing big bream after several (in fact many) years of boillies being heavily introduced. It taking more time for the bream to switch on to the boillies than actually put the weight on.

 

No I really dont think bream like boillies so will not get on to them unless there is no other viable food source.Reason they dont like them (or realy I suppose I should say dont prefer them?) I think is linked to the way they feed which is different to carp and tench. I also believe that classic bream "hoovering" is only a result of the competition caused by feeding in shoal.These non shoal fish simply not having the competition and therefore "grazing" rather than "hoovering"

 

Back to the buisness of multiple catchs.Ive thought about this one a lot as Ive never had a multiple catch of truely big bream but have witnessed a couple on waters where blanks are the norm and one fish in a session the most you realisticly hope for. (once again I must stress we are talking of waters where BIG is defined as 14lb + being the average size and not waters with shoals of 8-10lbrs or waters which have chucked up the odd one or two 13-14lbr)

 

Ive seen/known of these catchs at Queenford,TC and Wingham.Catches of 3-4 huge bream.After a lot of thought I cant see any obvious definate reasons why this should happen or not for that matter. One possible reason is that its rare for the bream to be in any numbers (presuming that you will be lucky to catch one if you have three or four in front of you without spooking the others as unlike shoal bream I think these big ones will spook) To catch several then I feel you must have an unusually high number in front of you.This I feel will boil down to simply being in the right place at the right time be it by luck or design.No point baiting up with enough bait to keep these bigger "freak" shoals in front of you as the chances of this happening are so rare that all you would be doing is "spoiling" your chances of a single fish on the other times.

 

Back to that all important question of location.I honestly believe that most times when bream fishing I dont have a single feeding bream any where near me! Its just a case of setting up my ambush where I think the bream may come through.As I dont believe gravel pit brem patrol like there mates in the meres a lot of this will be done by fishing "pinch points" where fish would be chanelled through or as Den says "known producing ares".

 

One last thought,Despite being a great lover (and having had a lot of double figure bream on the technique of heavy baiting and waiting) I think you can more easily ruin your chances of a freak bream with your baiting tactic than improve them.

 

Be interesting to know if the waters that produced the big "carp caught" bream that Den reffered to fall into the catagory I described?