Big bream

[Kappa]

And as Steve says, bouyant baits too...

 

I'm not sure I agree, although the experience mentioned earlier suggests that pop ups are more effective.

 

If they are sucking and blowing you need a rig that will prick the fish as it sucks and blows, in my tank test the more buoyant a bait the less effective my rig was in doing this. If you are waiting for the fish to right itself before it it hooked you are expecting it not to spit it out during the sucking and blowing?

 

How far from the bottom were the bream sucking and blowing?

 

Rich

[Steve Burke]

The mouths of these bream were only an inch or two off the bottom as I recall, but they were only small fish.

 

The idea of having the bait off the bottom is that there may be no need for the bream to suck and blow to clean the food. Hopefully they'll take the bait just once.

[poledark]

I think you have to be very careful at prejudging how bream feed. It probably depends on how hungry they are/what food they are eating/competition (even from just one other fish nearby) . Comparing tank fish to wild ones is also misleading. Tank fish have the luxury of beaing able to pick and choose (suck and blow)

 

I have watched bream feeding on a patch of tiny particle in silt and they were like pigs at a trough. Wouldn't touch the plastic corn in among the particle though These were old fish, stocked at 15lbs + (super bream ? ) but going back a bit, and now mostly down to 9 or 10 pounds.

 

It is interesting to see the reaction of these fish. The water is very shallow and the bream are dotted about over an area of maybe 20 sq mtrs. Chuck a handful of fine pellet (3MM) in. and gradually, one at a time, they converge and eat the lot. Many times they have ignored my hookbaits in among the patch of pellets

 

Just offer them a good bit of grub and they will eat it

 

Den

[Dick Dastardly]

These were old fish, stocked at 15lbs + (super bream ? ) but going back a bit, and now mostly down to 9 or 10 pounds.

 

 

Slightly off subject but its a pet hate of mine.Transfering any over large specimens is in my mind poor animal husbandry.Note I say animal husbandry as I suppose it can be argued that the publicity gained by such is in fact "good" fishery management.....well if profit out weighs the well being of the poor fish that is.

 

Big (or more acurately I should say older) specimens of all species (yes I reckon even carp in some circumstances) just dont adapt well to new waters, not only proven but really I think a bit bleeding obvious!

 

Anyway back on topic.

 

I totally agree with Den that observing tanked fish can lead to missleading conclusions however it does show you the "mechanics" of how fish move and feed to a degree.

 

Ive seen big (not SB admitedly) bream both hoover and pick (ie take a small mouthfull then right them selfs before up ending again) The common facter though in determining which way they feed seems to be back to this old buisness of shoal feeding or "individual" feeding (and by individual I mean from a single fish to a group of fish feeding individualy in the same area) Shoal feeders tend to keep their heads down and "hoover" whilst the individuals "pick".Maybe the increased competition amongst the shoal forces them to keep their heads down more?

 

Incidently strange as it seems finding the occupants of the same water feed in both ways (regardless of size or amount of food) at different times is most unusual.I think all fish grow up with an inbuilt/ingrained MO of feeding on all waters and cant just change even if the availability of food does.Pike on trout reservoirs are a good example of this as are Brown trout raised on an exclusive diet of floating pellets to name but two examples that spring to mind.

 

I still think there are only two ways of presentation possible.Either to get the hook bait to act as similar to the freebies as possible or go for the "involuntery" take. If you can incorporate a self hooking element in to the rig(s) that give either of these presentations then all the better.

 

Den out of interest what hook baits (or more to the point what size) were you getting ignored over the beds of micro pellet?

[poledark]

Budgie, first off, those bream were destined for the bin if they hadn't been transferred several years ago, so they are very likely 22/25 years old (and looking it )

 

Several times last summer I had a go at them, the pellet is one sold as Coarse fish feed. I don't know the name of it, but I will be taking delivery of another sack soon, so will have a look on the label. I do however, seem to think it is called or made by Skrettings? Micro pellet and pale straw colour. It is an essential part of my method mix as it can be mixed in such a way that it will slowly expand after casting out the feeder and create a nice little mound of feed.

 

As I said, these bream often gather within close range in about 3ft of water and just "hang about" The bottom is soft brown silt. A handful of the pellet spread over a yard or so will soon attract the interest of one, but it is soon joined by others. More feed keeps them truffling away. They ignore plastic corn (white and yellow) maggots (red) and little bits of PYM paste. All of these baits catch carp and tench when fished over these pellets!

 

They don't straighten up while feeding, simply bury their snouts in the silt and keep eating. How the manage to ignore the hookbaits is a mystery. The only success I have had has been by foul hooking one or two. There have been a couple of times when about 20 of these fish have been almost shoulder to shoulder, and still no joy.

 

Probably had a similar thing happen to me on a couple of other lakes, but as those fish were unseen except for the distinctive bubbling, I can only guess that they were probably wise old bream

 

So not a lot of help I'm afraid

 

My instinct would be to pile a load of small halibut pellet in, same size as the hook baits, so if they do start to feed on them,you can match the feed with hookbaits. Perhaps I should try that on "my" bream

 

Perhaps I should add that these occasions have been whilst carp fishing another lake a few yards away, and have not been serious all out attempts to catch them That's my excuse, and I am sticking to it :)

 

Den

Edited May 27, 2009 by poledark

[Dick Dastardly]

Much confirms what Ive also seen as well Den.

 

I think its often a good policy to have various size items of food in your groundbait as (especially) using lots of very small items of the same type and size can create this type of feeding behaviour.However it can be turned to your advantage as when fish are clearly hoovering they can be easily caught using "involuntery" take tactics.Ive done well with carp whilst using only hemp like this.

 

You mention silt and I must admit that even though I have caught over gravel using such tactics fishing them over silt seems a lot better.I suppose hoovering is the preffered way (in fact only way) they can feed efficiently in silt where over gravel (even with very small food items) they have the choice of picking or hoovering?

[Anderoo]

I'm not that keen on the term 'super bream', but here's a question - would a small (for the water) bream from a low stock bream water be classed as a SB? Or does it have to be a biggie?

 

Something very interesting happened last night, but I'll post properly later. I'm afraid there's quite a lot of new information coming, and it's as confusing as hell

[Kappa]

I'm afraid there's quite a lot of new information coming, and it's as confusing as hell

 

I'd just like to re-iterate I don't really feel there is a difference between fishing for tench and bream

 

Rich

[Anderoo]

I'd just like to re-iterate I don't really feel there is a difference between fishing for tench and bream

 

Rich

 

Argh, he's right! Or at least, maybe he is!

 

This last session was out-and-out for tench, so very tight and light baiting with a little groundbait, lots of hemp, some maggots, corn and micro pellet, fishing fake maggots and PVA bags of real ones. And, vitally, an area of the lake well known for tench and even better known for being useless for bream.

 

You can see where this is heading can't you...

 

For the first night I carried on using the fake maggots and didn't get a touch, so on the second I changed to 10mm tutti fruity boilies and fake corn, so it just sunk, with a PVA bag of crushed boilies and micro pellet. I thought there may be a chance of a big loner tench after dark. Because the wind had swung from a W to a NE, I also found a new spot for that night, the deepest area in front of me at about 8ft. Right in the middle was a small gravelly spot at 7.5ft - nice eh! So I put 5 small spods of dryish groundbait on that. It was only 15 yards out.

 

At 11pm I had a tench on one of the other rods, fishing shallower and further out. At 1am I had another which wiped out the other two rods, meaning a lot of faffing and recasting. At 3am the bobbin on my middle rod jerked up to the rod, fell back, jerked up and took a bit of line, fell back halfway, went back up and took a bit more line, and I thought, brilliant, an eel, just what I need I struck and started bringing the fish in, and I was happy to note that it felt like a tench after all, but one of the ones that comes in easily then goes mental under the rod tip, but it just kept coming and went straight into the net, where it suddenly turned into a big old bream I cannot tell you how shocked I was (and still am). It was a huge framed fish, as big as the 15 last year, and in absolutely mint condition, it looked awesome. I put her on the scales and the needle went round to 11lb 1oz. That can't be right! Try again, 11lb 1oz. Maybe I'm reading it wrong and it's 21lb 1oz? Nope! For such a big fish I was amazed it didn't weigh more, but when slipping her back I could see why, she was thin across the sholders (the 15 looked like a carp across its back!). So, a very young, fresh looking fish with a lot of potential weight to put on...

 

NB just before, Rob Ward had 20 minutes of liners in the next swim.

 

And it came in the middle of a pretty big tench catch.

 

Explain all that please! I'm all confused again...

[Guest tigger]

I actually think the larger Bream use the Tench as feelers and follow them in on food if all's well. I would imagine large bream will shoal with the larger tench on occassions.

Edited May 30, 2009 by tigger