#2. Breams Can Come True...

For me there's always been something quite mythical about big gravel pit bream. Large shoals of big, bronzed, dustbin lid sized bream mooching about in the depths. Not everyone's fish of choice and to most carp anglers a complete pest. But not to me, I love em and have fancied a go for em for a while now. September is a good time to bream fish as well, so I recently decided to venture out to a pit where I know a few good fish reside 😃🎣

Rods out!

Well, as usual living on south coast, practically every lake I want to fish I have to head north. This one was not to far a run in the south of the country. Usually the M25 is a cruel bitch for me but on this occasion I chose to go up the night before and stay in a travelodge just down the road from the venue. This paid off as traffic was light and by staying close to the pit I did not need such an early start in the morning 🚗🚗

M25 behaving itself!

The following morning I arrived at the lake at first light, enabling us to get the pegs we wanted on the far bank under the cover of trees. It's not a heavily fished gravel pit but with rain and wind forecast if offered shelter, making it the most suitable spot. 

Fishing would be over a slight gravel bar at about 40 yards out. So first things first I chose my area using a far bank marker and began to spod out some particle and attractant. This consisted of a fine mixture of hemp, oats, caster, maize, molasses to add flavour and few other little bits. 5 to 6 spod fulls over my chosen area was plenty to begin with creating a cloud effect and covering the lake bed with some free offerings 🍽

Spodding out!

Once this was out there working its magic I set about tackling up. My rods of choice were two Drennan Tench and Bream specialist rods. Both 1.75 tc, coupled with a couple of shimano bait runners spooled with 8lb line. At the business end I would be using the method feeder tactics with hair rigged pop up sweat corn and size 14 hooks. A tired and tested method for bream and would also catch me any tench that may come my way. 

The method mix I like to use on the feeder is a simple bream method mix. It smells so sweet and I also like to add a little tutti fruity attractant to it for extra flavouring. Then mix it with a little lake water and Its good to go. It almost smells like something I could eat myself 😋

Having aloud around half an hour after spoding out I was set up and ready to go. The wind that was forecast was not materialising and the sun had come out. I set up the rod rests and turned on my alarms and made my first two casts. These method feeders fly through the air with little effort allowing me to hit my baited area with little effort what so ever. I attached the bobbins and sat back for the waiting game to begin 🎣🙏🙏

Tactics for the job!

By now the sun was up and warm and with it shining on my face I started to become sleepy and began dozing off 😴😴😴 Some 15 mins later I was woken with the buzz of my right hand rod going off. Oosshh I had a run but was it a bream? That question was soon answered when I lifted into it and got a few thuds on the rod. Definite bream lunges, after a minute or twos scrap my mate arrived from the swim next door to do the honours with the net. I swung the rod in and a beauty of a dark bronze male bream slipped into the net. A few quick pics and a quick weigh and all 9lb 12oz of him was swimming back off into its watery home 🎣👍🏻

Bronzed beauty!

About an hour later I had another run on the right rod, another bream was on the way in but this time I would have to land it myself as my mate had gone to get us some refreshments. I was just getting the bream into netting range when my left bobbin shot up and I had a double hook up! I was then playing both fish while trying to keep them clear of snags. This proved to be a nightmare and after a few mins the lines became tangled. At this point the second fish topped the surface, a huge bream that would easily be a pb. It was just at that point after struggling to keep pressure on both fish that the larger bream bolted into weed and the hook pulled 😭 

Dustbin lid slab!

After a few expletives I composed my self and went on to land the other bream. An 8lb 8oz bronzed slab. I've never seen such fat bream! I quickly got both rods back out thinking a large shall my have moved in. Nope! For the next two hours I don't have a sniff. Not even a bleep or a twitch. At this point I decided to spod out a bit more bait. Another 3 or 4 spod casts as bream can quickly hover up bait in no time at all 😊

Another hour passed before I got my next run. It felt a good fish and then it broke the surface. It seemed reasonable. My mate again arrived with the net and as it slipped into the net it was then we realised it was one of the bigger bream. There all roughly the same size in diameter but all of the bigger fish have such fat bellies. I was a bit nervous as It had to be a good double to break my pb. I needed not to worry as the scales went 12lb 10z. My pb was smashed and I was ecstatic. A few pics later I returned it 🙌🏻😃🐋

My new PB of 12lb 10oz

After this my session was relaxed with a further bream banked weighing 9lb 3oz as well as a 7lb 7oz tench. My mate also managed a 12lb 7oz bream and a tench to. At this point it was mission accomplished so I decided to call it a day. I left the lake buzzing and can't wait to come back in a month or so when hopefully the bream will be munching hard ahead of the winter and I may be able to smash the pb once again... 😃🎣

Breamtastic Session!