Here I was driving up to the swim for the 5^th and 6^th night bream fishing. I hadn’t blanked on the previous visits however I couldn’t count tench as a result. The weather has been very warm at about 15c during the day and the water temperature had risen 2c to 14.5c.

Vince was bringing up the boat so that I could bait up and also see if any of the bait remained from Dan’s last visit.

As I had said at the end of my previous blog I have  a cunning plan, which was to move swims to where we had found some glowing golden gravel where fish had been feeding. Dan baited this spot earlier in the week and I couldn’t wait to look again. Sure enough it was still golden.

Cormorants were busy on the lake throughout the day catching the odd small fish.

So I baited with 2kg of Bailies No.1 cereal ground bait, the same amount of 3mm high betaine pellets, about 1 kg of pigeon mix and about the same of boiled maze. This was a bucket of bait in one tight area of gravel. I say tight but really large enough for 3 rods and rigs.

So with the ground bait in and rods cast out I could sit back and wait. Hook bait was popped up corn soaked in betaline which is a sweetener. Also pellet with a small PVA bag which should leave a nice snack for any browsing bream. Again I’ll show more about the rigs in a later blog.

So yet again I was listening to football on the radio. This is great at beating the boredom of waiting for bites in the darkness. Although at this time of year it doesn’t get dark until nearly 8.45pm.

So I was waiting for the bream to move in. Sure enough at 9.30 I had a few line bites on one rod which just lifted the bobbin a few inches. A couple of times the bobbin lifted to the rod then dropped back. It’s very exciting seeing all of this and knowing that  with a little luck they would pick your bait up.

This continued until 11pm when I had a proper run on one rod with line being taken from the reel. I lifted the rod and sure enough I could feel a thump, thump on the other end. The fish didn’t fight too much and it’s a case of slowly reeling them in. The moon was pretty much full and I could see this vast flank of a bream coming towards the net. A couple of times it turned over and my heart beat hastened hoping that nothing would go wrong. I needn’t have worried as everything went to plan and in the net she went.

To say I was pleased was an understatement as I lifted a good bream onto the unhooking mat. The plastic corn had done the trick.

I returned the bream to the water in the landing net while I got all the weighing equipment ready. Back out again and on the scales she weighed 10lbs 5oz. So a huge smile beamed across my face I had reached my target on the 5^th night of fishing on the lake. She was pretty much nearly ready to spawn which was a disappointment as time was now not on my side to catch others before they spawn.

I put the fish into my specialist keep net where she could stay until morning. I recast the rod to the same spot again. Sure enough within 30 mins the bobbins where lifting and dropping for ages.

No further bites came along as the night passed into the warm glow of the sun creeping up over the horizon. I hadn’t had much sleep however I was still on a high from catching the bream.

Dan came along during the morning to take some photo’s and to offer his congratulations. I had by now changed the rods over to maggot feeders ready to see if I could tempt some tench to feed.

We then took an opportunity to go out into the boat to measure distances of other gravel area’s and mark them up. It took us about 90mins to do this.

The day passed slowly as I slept for a while. A few of the other carp anglers came around for a chat and to bait their spots ready for the weekend.

No tench came along during the daylight hours and so just before it got dark again I paddled out and emptied about the same amount of bait onto the 3 small area’s of gravel that we had found. To be fair they were very close together and the bream could browse between them with our hopes that they would clear the remaining weed and create a large gravel patch.

Again with the rods cast out and more football on the radio I waited for the bream to move in. Sure enough at 9.15pm I had a few line bites on one of the rods. Now this is really exciting!

Then at 9.30pm one of the rods was off and line came off the reel which was a sure sign of a fish being hooked. I lifted into the bream which fought similarly to the one on the previous night. So in the net it went. On opening the net I could feel the rough spawning tubercles of a male bream. The head was covered in the things as were some of the scales. I’m told and can understand that most of the liners are where these catch on the line and pull the bobbins up.

The bream wasn’t so large in fact 8lbs 8oz was the weight .

So with this one landed my thoughts were going on to think that I might just catch a few more. So I recast the rod again onto the spot. A few minutes past and the liners started again, Dan says to sit on your hands until line comes off the reel, and this is about right.

Then at about 11.30 the liners stopped. So I took the opportunity to reel in and recast all the rods into the spots with fresh baits. Nothing much happened until 1.30am when the far rod roared off with line being taken from the reel. Sure enough as I lifted the rod I could feel the thump of a bream on the other end. People are right they don’t fight like normal fish but what they lack in this department they excel in their looks.

This too proved to be a male fish that was very long. So I rested the fish in the net  while I got the scales ready. On the scales it went around to almost 10lbs but not quite 9lbs 15oz was the final weight I settled on. I couldn’t get over the length of the fish 24 inches from fork of tail to mouth.

This rod was the nearest rod and again both bream were caught on plastic corn popped up and  dipped in betaline.

So life was good, happy days.

I recast the rods again onto the spots, which were at 16, 18 and 19 yds.

That was it I didn’t get any more liners. Then at 4.30am just before it got light I had a one toner that had the reel screeching.  I jumped out of bed and lifted into nothing. Dan tells me that often this is where the line catches on the tubercles of the bream. So I had to use this as an explanation.

Sunlight lit the sky when I woke and it was 7.20am and time to pack away. Dan was coming to fish the swim at 9am. So with everything packed away Dan came to hear the story of the night and took the photo’s again.

So they are not the largest bream and probably not worth mentioning where some people catch multiple 12 and 13lbers in a session. For me though I was a happy” Easter Bunny” .

My only hope is that they don’t spawn too soon. I would like to catch a few more doubles though.

At least the L plates can be torn in half. However I have so much more to learn about these beautiful fish.

So another week passes by and it’s a time for bream again. Tuesday’s jobs completed by noon and the car is loaded up and off I go to the bream lake. First though I pick up some pellets for ground bait via Hinders in Swindon. The weather had been very good with temperatures being 14c […]

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