Big bream

[poledark]

Sorry Tel,but when I read that 120acres, I was sitting looking out on a 55acre field, and trying to imagine how anyone could begin to assess the population of bream.

 

"As it 'appens" I fish a 12 acre pit that is probably the same..only one bream ever caught, about 9 lbs. Comes out about once every two years

 

Tel2, even better with 3.5TC and 30lb braid at 140 yds

 

Back on course....a guy fishing MKF Mill, had 5 D/F bream to 13lb last week. The carp were busy spawning.........

 

 

Den

[Wordbender]

Question is. Was it tagetted with 3lb test rods loaded with 18lb line fishing boilies at 100yds???

 

Nope! This time it was fished for, not caught as a by-product of carp angling. He's an extremely skilful angler, Tony Gibson.

[Wordbender]

Sorry Tel,but when I read that 120acres, I was sitting looking out on a 55acre field, and trying to imagine how anyone could begin to assess the population of bream.

 

Not so hard to assess a population, when there isn't one, mate.

 

The local opinion runs along the lines of; only one bream ever seen, only one bream ever caught...only one bream.

 

You gots ta respec' them numbers, innit.

[lutra]

There is a couple of articles on bream fishing in this weeks AT.

 

Sadly i cant find any links to them, but some of you might find the article by Steve Ringer talking about some underwater filming of bream fishing his brother did in Holland interesting and worth the £1.70 this week.

 

Some of the conclusions were longer than 8" hook length are no good, feeding tight is no good for holding fish and the bream didn't hover. They returned to mid-water between each mouthful.

 

How relevant to SB's this might be is anyones guess, but still interesting stuff.

[Anderoo]

Cheers Lutra, I'll have a look.

 

I have a feeling that this topic ended up as much as a hindrance as a help to some people, with so much theorising and so few results. I hope people still contribute as and when they can though. I don't think I'll have much else to add for a while as I put the theory into practice.

 

It's been a huge help to me, incidentally

 

I had a chat to the guy at Wingham who is by far the most successful bream angler there, and he feels like he's cracked it, and I'm inclined to agree with him! The reason more aren't caught is simply because there are so few of them.

 

The real gritty issue of location can only be 'solved' by catching a few and analysing the resulting data, and hoping to find patterns.

 

There's still plenty of the season left, so I hope a few people get their chance and manage to bank a few.

 

EDIT: I just read the article in AT and I found it pretty useful. There wasn't much to it - only really 2 points. 1. Bream hover in mid-water, drop down, pick up an item of food, and then draw back up into mid-water. 2. Bait a fairly wide area so they can feed easily.

 

It certainly made me think more about pop-ups/zig rigs.

 

They definitely don't hoover like carp/tench. That is information worth knowing!

Edited June 24, 2009 by Anderoo

[poledark]

Ah, but they DO hoover like carp and tench. I have watched them do it on numerous occasions.

 

They also take damned great 22mm boilies.

 

Den

[lutra]

I think all this hoovering or not hoovering when they are feeding is all down to their confidence and fits with what i wrote here.

[Anderoo]

I reckon Lutra is right.

 

I said before that I didn't think that an 11lber is any harder to catch than a 20lber, but that can't be right - there are a lot more 'small' bream than 'big' bream. To stop a group of ten 11-13lbers and get them feeding takes a different baiting strategy than one 17lb+ fish.

 

Based on what we know, I think we're fishing for the following:

 

- one group of about ten 11-13-14lbers

- two groups of three or four 15-16lbers

- two or three individual loner fish of 17lb+

 

That gives a total of about 20. I may well be wrong, as estimations of the total number vary quite a lot.

 

I guess they sometimes 'hoover' if they're really having it over a baited spot, but I think that most of the time they pop down for a mouthful and then tip back up.

 

I am starting to wonder if the best way to catch one of the biggest loner fish is to put no bait out at all and lay a line of 4 zig rigs across or near to one or two pinch points and fish single, bouyant, flavoured baits a couple of feet off the bottom. No disturbance with baiting up or fiding spots with marker gear; no disturbance from other species feeding on your groundbait; and no need to encourage these wary fish down onto a baited spot.

 

Just absolute luck that over the 2 or 3 nights you're there, one will pass over one of the baits. But if you were trying to get one to feed on a carefully baited spot, you'd need them to pass through anyway.

 

What do people think? Has anyone ever caught bream (of any size) like this?

 

By the way, in that AT article, they said that they watched one bream pick up a bait on a 3ft hooklength (traditional bream tactics) and swim around with the bait in its mouth for two minutes before finally spitting it out, and they didn't get any indication at all!

[lutra]

Has anyone ever caught bream (of any size) like this?

Ive never used a used a zig rig, so its a no from me.

 

Ive caught bream on the drop when using long hook lengths for shoal bream and theres been plenty of fish in the swim. But i cant say Ive even got the impression i would be better fishing well off the bottom. May be carpers that use zig rigs on waters with bream in could help you on that one.

[Anderoo]

In this week's AM there's a very impressive story about a guy who fished a 24-hour session at Startops and had a fantastic haul of bream weighing 16lb 4oz, 16lb, 13lb 12oz and 10lb 7oz (all caught deliberately).

 

What's most interesting is that he blanked during the night and then caught all 4 fish in a 30-minute spell starting at 10am, and some of the fish (it doesn't say how many) were caught on rubber caster, the rest on lobs. I'm still trying to get my head around the bream and fake baits thing.