Big bream

[Anderoo]

I'd make a distinction between patrolling (being able to set your watch by them) and wandering (randomly moving around the lake). I also don't think the bream are constantly wandering or resident in large areas. I think there are small groups of fish which are semi-resident in areas of the lake. There may well be more than one small group in such an area at certain times. I think they 'patrol' (for want of a better word) around these areas, using the pinch points and channels to move through so they don't have to make big depth changes.

 

Then, for various resaons, they'll move on to another area and stay put there for a bit.

 

If I'm right, there are areas of the lake which are screaming out to be fished. Fishing the known swims is a good bet for a fish, but I'm convinced there are spots which are as good if not better just waiting to be discovered. One of the best known swims didn't produce a bream all last season, despite it being fished relatively hard. My guess is that the fish just weren't there.

 

Final thought - maybe the best method of location is firing out 4oz leads on tight lines and fishing for liners?

[Steve Burke]

Firstly, a couple of replies to specific questions.

 

The estimate of 40 bream in 40 acres is partly based on estimates of the stock density in similar waters such as Queenford, and partly because the maximum number seen at any one time has been about this figure. Mostly the bream seem to be in smaller groups, as when some were seen rolling in 3 separate areas at the same time on an AN Fish-In. This resulted in 2 simultaneous captures. Whilst the shoals appear to be scattered most of the time their paths may sometimes cross, and of course will almost certainly do so for spawning.

 

I do take into account eels in considering predators, and indeed consider all predators including birds such as cormorants. However an open Forum isn't a place I'd like to discuss this in anything other than general terms. I'd be happy to explain why and go into more detail at a Specimen Group Fish-In.

 

I've an open mind on Anderoo's suggestion that the bream are semi-resident in a given area. I certainly believe this is the case with the tench, although there seem to be a few "wanderers" as well. These seem to be individual fish, but interestingly they're often bigger than the "stay at homes" and feed at different times.

 

On the other hand, Derek Quirk in his book reckoned it was rare for a bream to be caught on anything other than the first or second night in a swim at Queenford. If he fished for a week he'd therefore fish 3 swims even though it involved a lot of upheaval.

 

Against my better judgement and purely as an experiment, I've several times spent 2 nights in the swim that Alex had just caught in. On each occasion I never had a line bite or saw a bream roll, let alone caught one. I seem to recall Queenford members had similar experiences more often than not.

 

I'm therefore undecided about how much the Wingham bream roam. My guess is that the greater the stock density of a given species the more likely they are to be territorial. On the other hand if there are only a few fish of a given species in a water I suspect they'd be more likely to move around to find the maximum concentrations of food without having the problems of trespassing into another shoal's territory.

 

Turning to undertow it's interesting that Dennis Kelly writes about this a fair bit in his bream book in the Catch More series. This was largely based on his experiences on the Meres but he reckoned that the sheltered side of bars was a good bet.

 

It does seem that not only do you have to choose the right swim at Wingham, you've also got to choose exactly the right spot in the swim. And as most swims contain a mass of features this isn't easy. How many times do we catch from just one really tiny part of a swim and get nothing elsewhere? This applies to all species, and seems to break down only on the odd occasions that the fish are really on.

 

I've long recommended that members therefore largely confine themselves to only 2 or 3 swims and really get to know them extremely well. By doing so we'll more quickly find the hotspots, and indeed are likely to find more than 1 hot area within a swim. On the other hand if we fish swims we don't know well, unless we see a bream roll (and that rarely happens) we could be fishing the right swim but the wrong spot and not know it.

 

At the moment just a few swims that have a track record get any serious attention on the Coarse Lake, and much of the rest of the 40 acres rarely sees a bait. However many of these swims just scream out to be fished!

 

Edit note: I composed this without seeing Andrew's post. Although we may differ on the movements of the bream we've come to the same conclusion on fishing some new swims.

Edited February 7, 2009 by Steve Burke

[Dick Dastardly]

Trouble is Anderoo unless your semi resident theory is right by fishing for liners to locate them we could (by the time we actually fish for them) be fishing for bream that have long gone.

 

I'm drawn to this wndering buisness even though I cant realy see why they would have the need to wander realy large areas!

 

Fish not being resident in small areas for any length of time would explain the hit and miss results even from "known swims" In fact it all brings me back to the sugestion that multiple catches may be down to multiple groups of SB's visiting/passing through the swim in the same session. I dont remember Alex ever saying at what time periods he had had the fish that made up his multiple catchs I must ask him.In fact Steve (Burke) had a multiple catch so how were they spread out?

[Dick Dastardly]

Also for anyone who still doubts that bream and SB's act very differently look at this buisness of SB's nearly always being caught on the first or second night of a session then dissapearing.Normal breaming just tends to get better night after night as the feed keeps going in.

[Steve Burke]

Trouble is Anderoo unless your semi resident theory is right by fishing for liners to locate them we could (by the time we actually fish for them) be fishing for bream that have long gone.

 

I'm drawn to this wndering buisness even though I cant realy see why they would have the need to wander realy large areas!

 

Fish not being resident in small areas for any length of time would explain the hit and miss results even from "known swims" In fact it all brings me back to the sugestion that multiple catches may be down to multiple groups of SB's visiting/passing through the swim in the same session. I dont remember Alex ever saying at what time periods he had had the fish that made up his multiple catchs I must ask him.In fact Steve (Burke) had a multiple catch so how were they spread out?

 

I've never had a multiple catch, Budgie, just one per session maximum.

 

Alex is at Wingham today and I'll shortly be off to have a chat with him.

[Steve Burke]

Also for anyone who still doubts that bream and SB's act very differently look at this buisness of SB's nearly always being caught on the first or second night of a session then dissapearing.Normal breaming just tends to get better night after night as the feed keeps going in.

 

Agreed, see my comments 4 posts above.

Edited February 7, 2009 by Steve Burke

[Dick Dastardly]

I've never had a multiple catch, Budgie, just one per session maximum.

 

Alex is at Wingham today and I'll shortly be off to have a chat with him.

 

Yes please Steve.Its very frustrating that he's not on line! I would pop over myself but got no dog sitter!

[lutra]

Also for anyone who still doubts that bream and SB's act very differently

I don't think i have a problem with thinking they act very differently, but considering them a different species as some have suggested is taking it a bit far for me. I think every water Ive ever fished seems to have some unique twist to it and this is just as true in my bream fishing. To compare bream fishing on Wingham to other waters is always going to be hard with its low numbers of fish and rich pickings, not to mention its unnatural bottom features, but i don't think you should totally stop looking at bream in other waters for little clues in to what might or might not be going on at Wingham.

 

look at this buisness of SB's nearly always being caught on the first or second night of a session then dissapearing.Normal breaming just tends to get better night after night as the feed keeps going in.

Very interesting that Budgie, but I'm not so sure its true that bream fishing gets better and better on smaller waters although its very true of larger waters with a good head of fish, but who's to say the fish that are there on the 1st night are the same fish that are there on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th........nights. There cant be a better fish attractor for competitive fish than feeding fish so you are likely to have new fish coming in all the time.

[Anderoo]

On the other hand, Derek Quirk in his book reckoned it was rare for a bream to be caught on anything other than the first or second night in a swim at Queenford. If he fished for a week he'd therefore fish 3 swims even though it involved a lot of upheaval.

 

Against my better judgement and purely as an experiment, I've several times spent 2 nights in the swim that Alex had just caught in. On each occasion I never had a line bite or saw a bream roll, let alone caught one. I seem to recall Queenford members had similar experiences more often than not.

 

I don't think that's evidence of wandering bream, I think that backs up the semi-resident idea. I have no idea why a group would move from one area to another (Steve C had some good suggestions in an earlier post) but having a shoal-mate caught could certainly be one of them. A further catch after Alex would suggest wandering fish to me rather than semi-resident. I reckon you only get one crack at a group of fish before they're off!

 

It does seem that not only do you have to choose the right swim at Wingham, you've also got to choose exactly the right spot in the swim. And as most swims contain a mass of features this isn't easy. How many times do we catch from just one really tiny part of a swim and get nothing elsewhere? This applies to all species, and seems to break down only on the odd occasions that the fish are really on.

 

I've long recommended that members therefore largely confine themselves to only 2 or 3 swims and really get to know them extremely well. By doing so we'll more quickly find the hotspots, and indeed are likely to find more than 1 hot area within a swim. On the other hand if we fish swims we don't know well, unless we see a bream roll (and that rarely happens) we could be fishing the right swim but the wrong spot and not know it.

 

At the moment just a few swims that have a track record get any serious attention on the Coarse Lake, and much of the rest of the 40 acres rarely sees a bait. However many of these swims just scream out to be fished!

 

Edit note: I composed this without seeing Andrew's post. Although we may differ on the movements of the bream we've come to the same conclusion on fishing some new swims.

 

Yes, I definitely agree with that! When tench fishing, in most swims there's a red-hot area and all the surrounding water is almost a waste of time, even though it may look as good on paper. You can only find these spots by long hours with a marker rod and then trial and error. Mostly error

 

I'm drawn to this wndering buisness even though I cant realy see why they would have the need to wander realy large areas!

 

Fish not being resident in small areas for any length of time would explain the hit and miss results even from "known swims" In fact it all brings me back to the sugestion that multiple catches may be down to multiple groups of SB's visiting/passing through the swim in the same session.

 

The reason I don't think multiple catches are down to multiple groups are because (1) what are the odds of that, really? Nothing all season then two groups of SB in the same session! (2) after my fish, bream were still feeding on the spot. I don't believe a separate group came along right at that point and started feeding wildly! No, it must have been the same group.

 

 

Sorry to keep repeating myself, but I'm still trying to clarify my own thoughts and writing it all out helps! I also want to say that I'm not trying to make 'facts' fit my theory, it's just what makes sense to me at the moment. I may well change my mind, and given decent evidence I'd be happy to do so.

 

I've already given up on the liner idea!

 

From a fishing point of view, I'm not sure how the bream being true wanderers or semi-resident can affect things that much. (If they patrolled, in the true sense, that would be different.) You still have to choose a swim based on the time of year, conditions and gut feeling. The feeding and actual fishing will be the same. The only difference I can see is that if they're semi-resident, there's no point hammering known spots hoping the fish will move through at some point. You may as well try a completely new area on the assumption that they have to be somewhere.

 

Also, when I say semi-resident I don't mean they stay in definite defined areas and won't go past a boundry. I do believe they slowly wander around almost all the time (how else would they find our bait?) but that there are areas of the lake that suit them and they have no need to leave it. It might be half an acre, it might be 8 acres, I don't know. But known spots not producing and catches coming on he first or second night to me all point to fish either not being there or already being there.

 

When you think about it, what are the odds of getting all your baiting done and casting out a few hours before a small group of huge bream wander past from the other end of the lake?

 

Speaking of odds, something I said to Steve the other night is worth putting here too. On swim selection, I think you want to be fishing the easiest swims possible! It's such a complicated lake and you can make it as complicated as you like, but give me an easy swim any day. I don't think it's any coincidence that all the known swims are (comparatively) easy to fish - your options underwater are limited, so you bait up the obvious spots and hope the bream turn up. This goes back to Steve saying to really get to know a couple of swims. Areas like the eggbox (a huge mass of humps and lumps) could hold bream, but where would you start? You could fish there for the rest of your life and still not figure that one out! Also, they'd probably take a different, random route through each time.

 

But there are lots of unfished 'easy' spots.

[Dick Dastardly]

but i don't think you should totally stop looking at bream in other waters for little clues in to what might or might not be going on at Wingham.

 

Definately.

 

Anderoo another interesting post.What I find so difficult about accepting new ideas though is clearly shown by your post.Every argument you use to validate something could also be used to equally disprove it! The whole subject just does my head in.The more I learn the more nothing is clear!Such a contrast to most "big bream" (as opposed to Super Bream) fishing Ive done that is often so easy!

 

At the moment rather than making my aproach for this comming season clearer it is just making me more undecided! Im sure (god I hope so!) that it will fall into place soon! Confidence in a clear strategy being the most important thing for me to nort only have any sucsess but even more so enjoy my fishing!