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The Largest Bream ever caught by an angler fishing for them.
18lbs 12oz Bream
As things go its fair to say my latest bream fishing had a mixed start. firstly I managed to land a lead first cast on the gravel bar I was fishing at nearly 120 yards first cast. This enabled me an accurate marker of pole elastic on the line enabling me to cast accurately even in the dark. what happened next was not so good - I fell out of my Sportyak boat whilst retrieving the swim markers! I've never fallen out of a boat in this way before and even though the water had started to warm up I was glad of my life jacket. It proves you should never take chances in boats and like a seatbelt you hope you never need it but if you do its worth its weight in gold - drowned anglers don't catch fish.
I'd already baited up for the night using three bags of Sonubaits Hemp & Hali Crush plus pellets and a sprinkling of 10mm Tutti Frutti Boosted Wraps, but not too many. Experience has taught me that bream like fruity boilies and the aim is to attract them to an area and then hopefully they'll seek the boilies out as a preferred food item. If you put too many in the chances of them choosing your hook-bait are lowered.
A quick change of clothes and I was ready to cast out. Even though the bar was quite narrow – about 6 feet – it was about 20 feet long giving plenty of room to cast two rods to it. At a push you could get three on but it means the potential for hooked fish crossing other lines is too great for comfort – there’s nothing worse than having to untangle three rods in the small hours. Much better to keep a third rod already clipped up and ready to cast if it’s needed.
Rigs were kept simple – a helicopter rig incorporating a 3oz lead, 3 feet of leadcore and a 5 inch hooklength of 10lb Maxima about 2 feet up the leadcore. The hook was a Korum S3 size 10, with a Sonubaits 10mm Tutti Frutti wrap tipped off with a piece of red artificial corn. The rubber corn helps balance the weight of the hook, hopefully making it easier for a fish to suck in.
The first evening was quiet – not surprising given the disturbance of setting up but at just past 1am I had a 12lb 14oz bream. This fish fought very hard and I was a little surprised it wasn’t bigger when I saw it in the net. I was still awake at 4.40am thinking that the night was nearly over when the same rod was away again, this one didn’t fight anywhere near as hard even though it weighed 15lb 8oz.
I was more than happy with the results as often the first night bream fishing is a little disappointing, presumably as sometimes the fish take time to home in on the baited area.
I baited up earlier the next night as the fish the night before showed they were in the area. At 11pm I caught a fish I recognised from the previous year – a very warty 12lb 5oz bream. At 2.30am I woke to a single bleep and was still awake 5 minutes later when the bobbin on the other rod danced up and down – a typical bream bite – and I struck into what felt like a good fish. It just came towards me very slowly and when a fish is nearly 20 yards out it seems to take forever to get to the net. As it came to the marginal shelf it kited under the other line so I grabbed the net and waded in to net it as I could see it was big! I knew it would be knocking my personal best of 17lb 6oz, but even I was surprised when the scales registered 18lb 12oz, one of the biggest bream ever caught. My wife was with me and made a splendid job with the photographs.
On the final night I had another 12lb bream plus a bonus tench of 9lb 8oz, making it one of the most memorable trips of my life.
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