Big bream

[terry t shirt]

Looking at the sinking spod idea i was wondering if you use a bait dropper with an extended arm say a 12" long it would release the food that much above the lake bed not as big a scattering as dropping a spod but each cast would cover a square foot. the dropper would be easier to modify big weight at the bottom and a bit of floatation at the top would ensure when it hit bottom it would be right way up.you could make an adjustable arm to vary the height of release i reckon you could get to 18" before it would get to unwieldy to cast. Might try making one to demonstrate the idea.

[Anderoo]

I will start by reminding readers i have never been to Wingham never mind fished for its bream, so I may well be talking out of my a....... I can only hope Anderoo doesn’t mind me digging at his fishing techniques, its just he is being the most open about them so he is easy to pick on and it is his topic.

 

Anderoo I wouldn’t doubt huge beds of feed (taking it that you can get them in without spooking fish) are the best way of getting your swim noticed by the bream, but I’m just not so sure about them being “the best way to get the bream feeding”.

 

I’ve had the pleasure of fishing for bream on a lot of big waters that it is the norm for anglers (inc. myself) to put carpets of feed down to fish over, but I will no more. It’s not just the size of bags, it’s been the getting fish going in the first place that has impressed me.

 

The real trick is to use a light sprinkling of high leakage things like chopped boilie, liquidised sweat corn, micro pellets scalded in flavoured water and other baits. See how match anglers chop worms and crush casters for feeding. I think one of the reasons it seems to work well is you are not sending out the same warning signs as when you put down a heavy carpet of ground bait and the lake bed looks more natural. You really don’t need a lot of feed and even with chopped boilies you can make a tenner go a long long way.

 

When it comes to location I think if you fish the right weather and seasonally known pegs for bream around the N/E end of the lake you will never be that far away from bream even on Wingham. If things aren’t to their liking I wouldn’t doubt Richards suggestion that bream may be in or pass by your swims more than you think.

 

You fished Wingham in January? I most have missed that.

 

October has been the kindest month for bream fishing to me.

 

I don't mind at all Lutra, in fact that's the whole point of this topic! I should also remind everyone that I am far from a bream expert. If I was I wouldn't have started this topic and keep asking questions. I really value every post.

 

To be clear, I'm not suggesting for one minute that huge beds of feed are a good idea.

 

What you say about high leakage, small items is exactly what I'm doing.

 

I think what I need to do next time I go is drop a spod of groundbait in the margin and take some photos, so you (and others) can see what I mean. I don't think I'm explaining it properly! It's not a heavy carpet of groundbait, far from it. It is, as you put it, a light sprinkling. I've tried my best to describe it, but I don't think I'm succeeding, so I'll get some photos next time

 

The NE end of the lake may not be that applicable to gravel pits with loads of bars. Because of all the 'margins' there are dozens of 'NE' ends, if that makes sense. I could be wrong!

 

Finally, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Richard is right I might change my mind, but not yet.

 

Terry, interesting idea about the bait dropper, but I don't think it would cast any distance.

[Angly]

I'm fairly sure my casting technique ensures a fairly wide dispersal of low food content feed. I use the Completely Random Application Pattern casting technique, although I expect some of you may be more familiar with it's acronym.

Edited May 22, 2009 by Angly

[lutra]

The NE end of the lake may not be that applicable to gravel pits with loads of bars. Because of all the 'margins' there are dozens of 'NE' ends, if that makes sense. I could be wrong!

If you draw a pic of the lake and put dots on it for bream caught which end off the lake has the most dots?

 

Can you make any sense of the time of year/weather to go with which swims have produced bream?

 

By the way your peg on the fish-in looks like it ticks a few boxes, how much did that cost you?

 

Poor tigger shoved down in no-mans land.

[Anderoo]

If you draw a pic of the lake and put dots on it for bream caught which end off the lake has the most dots?

I don't know for sure but from the captures I know about over the last few years I think the North end does have a few more than the middle or South, but that is skewed slightly by a 3-fish catch (very unusual) last year. The pins are all over the place!

 

Can you make any sense of the time of year/weather to go with which swims have produced bream?

Nope!

 

By the way your peg on the fish-in looks like it ticks a few boxes, how much did that cost you?

I was quite hopeful of that swim, but a bream in those conditions would have been quite something. It cost me nothing, same as all the other swims!

 

Poor tigger shoved down in no-mans land.

Bream have been caught there too

[lutra]

The pins are all over the place!

You would get that kind of result on a lot of waters especially in the warmer months, but you can sometime see patten's from fish caught when its very windy and in less warm times.

 

but a bream in those conditions would have been quite something.

In what way Anderoo? You were fishing into a strong south/westerly weren't you? Looked spot on to me.

 

Bream have been caught there too

That bottom bit looks deepish, less featured and is not in the prevailing wind, do you know when and in what conditions fish have been caught there?

[Angly]

This goes back to the conundrum that I posed in an earlier post in this thread. The bream, and therefore bream catches, are so few, how can you differentiate between meaningful data and random event?

 

And it's why I suggested a very complete database of SB catches (and even just sightings) that any Wingham member (or even non-members if you so chose) could access (but not alter). It's quite possible that even a complete non-angler might spot a pattern in the data that others had missed.

 

P.S. I'm a little surprised a mini-syndicate of Wingham SB anglers haven't tried to wean the fish onto HNV baits (i.e. baits the fish will become to acknowledge offer better nutrition than any natural baits).

Edited May 23, 2009 by Angly

[Anderoo]

We'll be pooling much more information soon (hopefully) regarding captures, sightings and liners and logging all available conditions too. As it is, I just don't have enough information personally to be able to look for patterns. Other members might.

 

Conditions weren't ideal Lutra because of the huge drop in water temperature.

 

HNV baits would get eaten by everything in the lake, including pike and eels, so I'm not sure what help that would be! The bream have been caught on such a variety of baits that personally I don't think hookbait is that important, as long as it's eel-proof.

 

I agree with Angly, that it's difficult (very difficult) to distinguish between random events and patterns. However, I do think that Lutra is also right, in that if there's enough detailed information shared, patterns may emerge.

 

I saw a guy in one of the weeklies had caught a 16lb+ bream by really piling in the feed (silly amounts!).

[Angly]

HNV baits would get eaten by everything in the lake, including pike and eels, so I'm not sure what help that would be!

 

Simple. If the bream found a bait that was better for them than any natural, they would go out of their way to find it, hence you the angler can dictate where they feed, instead of trying to guess.

 

This isn't really serious suggestion, because of the amount of bait required to do this, and I'm sure Steve doesn't want piles of HNV boilies and pellets being lobbed in daily.

[Steve Burke]

We'll be pooling much more information soon (hopefully) regarding captures, sightings and liners and logging all available conditions too. As it is, I just don't have enough information personally to be able to look for patterns. Other members might.

 

Conditions weren't ideal Lutra because of the huge drop in water temperature.

 

Now we've got big photos of the lake the marking of fish caught etc is on the agenda for next month's Specimen Group meeting.

 

I'm not convinced about the NE area of Wingham being the richest in food. This is partly because it's deeper than elsewhere. As has already been pointed out the huge numbers of bars break up the effect of drift somewhat, and in this respect Wingham is unlike Cheshire meres for instance. Here I understand that the NE bank is often "the richest of the rich".

 

At Wingham there are local rich areas all over the lake. The key seems to be to find them in the swim you're fishing.

 

Having said that, there are seasonal movements, with for instance the swim Andrew was fishing not responding early in the season, probably because of its depth (up to 15ft).