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Big bream


Anderoo

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What an interesting topic! We've been babysitting for the past few days so I’ve been able to read posts but unfortunately not had time to reply. I don’t for one moment pretend to know even a fraction of the answers despite Wingham being my own water, but hopefully the following will help and also prompt others to come up with ideas. Certainly the posts so far have given me food for thought – so thanks, guys!

 

By far the biggest problem is location, and so this post will deal largely with this issue.

 

Unlike traditional bream waters, on pits like Wingham the bream don’t have set patrol routes. Instead, as has already been pointed out, they seem to graze rather like cows in a field. And like cows they probably feed in the areas that offer the choicest pickings at the time, then move off elsewhere. But that elsewhere could be anywhere!

 

What’s more, because there’s so much natural food you can’t get the fish to come to you as is possible on many other waters. Additionally, in a lot of swims there are huge depth variations over short distances. Thus both your feeding and casting have got to be very accurate - ideally to within 1 yard.

 

40 acres is a huge area – 193,600 square yards in fact. Even if you divide it into areas as big as 5 yards by 5 yards you’re still talking about over 7700 spots to choose from!

 

Of course if you can see the bream you’re halfway home. Unfortunately they rarely roll, but if you do spot them it's certainly worth fishing the area. Doing so accounted for my first deliberate double-figure bream. I've rarely seen them roll since, and never when fishing!

 

So how else can we narrow it down. Others fishing similar waters to Wingham have established that bream don't seem to like feeding over weed. They found that they'd feed in naturally clear holes in the weed, but not in those that had been dragged.

 

(The next 3 paragraphs I posted on another recent topic, but am repeating here so that everything is kept together.)

 

The year I started was one of those when I'd treated the weed with herbicide (usually every other year). I thought this would make it even more difficult to locate the bream as they could now feed almost anywhere in the lake!

 

However, I then had the idea of trying to locate the routes they take in moving from one part of the lake to another and ambush them there, rather than guess where they might actually feed. This narrowed down the search no end and worked beautifully, resulting in my catching 5 bream that summer in about 20 nights. Since then I've not had one!

 

It's interesting that the highest number of bream have come in the years that the weed has been treated. The following year none were caught at all, the next year 10, last year just 5. I've therefore high hopes for this year, and hopefully amongst the catches will be a record. Goodness knows what the 17-14 caught in April 2004 will weigh now as it still had several years of growth left!

 

Going back to the routes, how do we decide where they're likely to be? I began with the assumption that the bream would prefer not to change depth substantially when moving from one swim to another. This may or not be true, but you have to start somewhere! Then I looked for places where they’d be funnelled into a smaller area, perhaps because of a gap in a long bar, or where a series of parallel bars stopped short of a deeper channel or the bank. In each case, if they passed through these places they’d be more bream in a given area, and thus temporarily a greater stock density and so a greater chance of catching them.

 

This still gave me a lot of possibilities, but I immediately rejected any swims that required a long cast, say over 75 yards, as the longer the cast the harder it is to fish accurately. I still had too many too choose from though, and therefore started on those closest to the bank.

 

Unlike many other waters, notably meres and estate lakes, the bream at venues with deep margins seem happy to come very close to the bank – as long as they’re not spooked of course. In fact, all the bream I’ve deliberately caught from Wingham have come no more than 15 feet (yes feet!) from the bank.

 

The second problem at Wingham and similar low stock density pits is that the bream are almost entirely nocturnal – in other words very different to traditional venues. Indeed, until I started night fishing in 2004 I’d had just 1 bream in 9 years. And that was soon after dawn. There’s been the odd bream caught in full daylight, but they’ve been very much the exception.

 

This is the reverse of the tench, although the division between day and night isn’t so marked with them. However at Wingham the tench do feed largely in the day, and unlike the bream do like weed. Perch, the other main species at Wingham at present, rarely feed at night on any water, although in summer they’re very active at dawn.

 

One recent change and often a big nuisance (as guests found on last year’s Fish-In!) is the eel population. The last 2 years has seen a big increase in the number of eels caught, and as we all know they feed especially hard at night.

 

This means that if you use an “animal” bait at night you’re much more likely to catch an eel than a bream – or in all probability lots of eels! This disturbance is likely to frighten off the bream, plus you don’t know how much of your feed they’ve eaten. Plus of course you don’t get a very restful night’s sleep!

 

This brings me nicely onto baits and groundbaits, but as this post is already overly long I’ll come back to these points later.

 

I’ll close by reiterating that I don’t know much about big bream. I’ve fished for them for just 4 years, and because of poor health haven’t been able to do much fishing at all in the last 2 summers. Additionally, what little I have learned has been just at Wingham and so may not apply even to other low stock pits. It certainly doesn’t apply to traditional bream waters!

Edited by Steve Burke

Wingham Specimen Coarse & Carp Syndicates www.winghamfisheries.co.uk Beautiful, peaceful, little fished gravel pit syndicates in Kent with very big fish. 2017 Forum Fish-In Sat May 6 to Mon May 8. Articles http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/steveburke.htm Index of all my articles on Angler's Net

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Steve - it surely would be fun if you radio-tagged a largish Wingham bream or two so you could establish a general idea of how and when they move around.

" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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Steve - it surely would be fun if you radio-tagged a largish Wingham bream or two so you could establish a general idea of how and when they move around.

 

 

Snap ! my very same thoughts .......... :idea:

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Steve - it surely would be fun if you radio-tagged a largish Wingham bream or two so you could establish a general idea of how and when they move around.

 

 

Difficult one this! I think I would like the information it gave but wouldnt be happy with the "short cut" or the fact that any tagging of a fish does some what detract from the pleasure of the next person to catch it.Great from a management/scientific point of veiw though.

And thats my "non indicative opinion"!

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Radio-tag?

 

Beginning to think there's a testosterone shortage on here. Whats happened to your sense of a challenge, man against beast and natural hunter instincts? :P

 

A tiger does not lose sleep over the opinion of sheep

 

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Steve - it surely would be fun if you radio-tagged a largish Wingham bream or two so you could establish a general idea of how and when they move around.

 

It would be great for it to be on someone else's water, and then take what's learned to Wingham. But at Wingham it would spoil the mystery - and for me that's half the fun!

Wingham Specimen Coarse & Carp Syndicates www.winghamfisheries.co.uk Beautiful, peaceful, little fished gravel pit syndicates in Kent with very big fish. 2017 Forum Fish-In Sat May 6 to Mon May 8. Articles http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/steveburke.htm Index of all my articles on Angler's Net

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Radio-tag? Beginning to think there's a testosterone shortage on here. Whats happened to your sense of a challenge, man against beast and natural hunter instincts? :P

 

Sitting in one spot and tossing out feed to attract grazing animals - that ain't hunting, Bubba. :rolleyes:

" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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This is very interesting stuff! I should make the point that I am not - and don't pretend to be - a bream expert (big or otherwise!). If I do ever catch a 15lb bream it would double my current PB :lol: And I use the word 'ever' intentionally.

 

But what a challenge! In fact I'm actually having difficulty sleeping at the moment.

 

I've now got my bobbins sorted and made up some test rigs which I'm very happy with (one running for the day, one semi-fixed for the night). I want to float fish where possible too. Now I just want to get out there and have a go.

 

Funnily enough I said the same thing about the radio tag on Saturday - not as serious idea but as an example of how knowing too much would probably put you off ever casting again :rolleyes:

 

I think the biggest choice you have to make at Wingham is: do I set my stall out for a bream and probably blank; or do I try for the tench with maybe a bit of perch fishing at dawn? Trying to do it all is possibly making compromises in both directions.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music

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I think the biggest choice you have to make at Wingham is: do I set my stall out for a bream and probably blank; or do I try for the tench with maybe a bit of perch fishing at dawn? Trying to do it all is possibly making compromises in both directions.

 

Far from it mate.I reckon one of Winghams greatest things is that you can fish for a big bream but whilst your waiting theres just as good a chance that a big tench or perch will come along! Right bait used of course!

And thats my "non indicative opinion"!

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Far from it mate.I reckon one of Winghams greatest things is that you can fish for a big bream but whilst your waiting theres just as good a chance that a big tench or perch will come along! Right bait used of course!

 

That would be my natural inclination Budgie, but talking to someone far more qualified than me made me change my mind.

 

I think the way I'd try to overcome it is by using as many rods as necessary to fish different areas from the same swim. I couldn't bring myself to purposefully ignore the tench!

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music

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