Spring time for the angler is a time to dust off the cobwebs formed over winter and a time to formulate plans for the season ahead. However, if you are like me and relentlessly pursue fish whatever the species, then the next campaign is not only round the corner, but looms up all too quickly! This is the situation I found myself in, after a productive winter spent fishing for Pike. All too soon the end of March deadline I set myself to curtail my predator sessions was upon me, and thoughts turned to one spring species in particular, the bream!
Being lucky in that I have a few local venues that give me the chance of a huge bream, it was with some confidence that I picked up where last spring’s bream campaign had left off. The beauty of fishing ultra local is that regular visits can be made to assess the situation prior to actual fishing, and it was on one of these regular visits that saw myself and the notorious Alan Stagg standing alongside one of my favourite bream venues of recent times. Having joined me on the big pond last season, Alan was keen to join in the hunt for more mega brasem action before the water properly warmed up and we both went off in search of different targets.
The initial couple of reconnaissance sessions drew a blank for yours truly, whilst Alan plundered the stocks with a few fish on his first trip. It was during the post session lead about that we decided to settle on a large central feature which not only offered a good all round ambush point, but was un-fancied by the carp anglers, who preferred to fish the more obvious features in the pond. A plan was hatched and duly carried out. Midweek baiting ensued ahead of the first session, and it was with much excitement that I paced out my rods to the bankside markers and clipped up ready for the first casts into the new area.
Rig choice for me was a simple affair of using the trusty Mugga-ligner with the new size 11 Mugga hooks and an Enterprise grub on one rod. The other rods were set up with simple running rigs and either 2 grains of Enterprise corn or two C1 Tippers. Size 8 Talon Tips and foot long 12lb Hydrotuff hooklinks were the starting point, with the aim to beat the patchy areas of weed that were fringing the spots we had previously located. Needless to say, that first trip to the new area saw Alan bag up yet again including a beauty of 11lb plus, whilst I had me fair share including a 10lb 4oz specimen to the maggots.
My corn rigs were soon shortened to 15lb Disruption hooklinks and size 10 Incizors, sticking to the Mugga hooks for the maggots on the same material. Changing over to a lead clip completed the setup, which was made as self hooking as possible thanks to a 3oz lead. Most bites were drop-backs.
With more midweek baiting, the area was slowly getting bigger and clearer, which was evident by the deep scars inflicted upon the side of the marker lead. By now we had realised that the more food we put in, the longer the fish remained in the area and the more bites we got. Between us, 10 kilos of Sonubaits Supercrush Green and F1 groundbait, a similar amount of particle and pellet and a few tins of corn were just about lasting a 2 night session, with more going in midweek. I also opted to fish small fruity boilies from the Hookbaits range, again tipped with Enterprise corn. They were literally eating us out of house and home! We both shared a few more nice fish, and it was not long before we both started catching multiples of fish including more than one in the net at the same time! Bites were fast and furious once they came, with two rods going off at the same time a common occurrence.
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