The river close season used to mean the end of fishing for
three months, now I can continue to enjoy my sport but only on allowable
still waters. I have been trying to catch
a large perch of one such venue and although I caught to well over the 3lb mark
as mentioned in the last blog I still await the 4lb fish I hope is swimming around
there.
A 3lb perch that still holds spawn.
As we move into April my thoughts change to the tench and
bream potential and with very little change in the rigs I cast further out and
hope for a large bream to show. The main
problem with bream is their nomadic nature on most venues, you may see them rolling
but that only tells you where there are at that moment not where they will be
or where they will feed.
Over the many years that I’ve fished for the bream I imagine
I’ve tried every known method and bait in their pursuit, the only conclusion I’ve
come to is when they are prepared to feed they can be easy and caught on almost
any method. The other side of that coin
is that most of the time they are very difficult, if not next door to
impossible.
This early in the season I had decided on a very frugal
approach and just rely on maggot loaded swimfeeders and a double hook rig with
the maggots on the hook nearest the feeder, then an artificial corn/maggot
combination on the top hook. This is not
going to going to make a big catch of fish but so far this year just three
bream have been caught, all singly with this suggesting they were not shoaled
up.
Pull the small hook into the corn and job done.
With the overnight rain I expected the water temperature to
have dropped and with the east wind blowing it was not with the highest of
expectations that I set out for an afternoon –evening session. Rods are already set up and it was just a
cast of casting for the horizon and sit back and wait. I recast every hour but it was more a case of
hoping a fish would come across the feeder offering and pick up the
hookbait. In the words of the famous
saying ‘nothing kept happening all the time,’ but that had been the case on my
previous visits for the bream so no surprise there.
It was well into the afternoon when one of the bobbins
dropped slightly and then gave a little giggle. It was not the usual bream bite that hits the
deck in one movement and I was quite surprised to hit into heavy resistance on
the strike. Playing the fish to the bank
I discussed the possible culprit with the lad who had come along from the next
swim. Not a perch, no bangs typical of
their fight, possibly a tench or maybe a jack pike since they have been picking
up maggot baits, not a bream though since it was too good a fight. Fifteen yards out it flashed on the surface
and to our surprise it was the bream I had hoped for, when the scales showed
it weighed in at 13lb-8oz it was a very nice welcome to a new water venture for
the bream. The fish had taken the artificial bait proving yet again their worth in the angler's armory.
First of the year.
