I was lucky enough to go bream bashing with Des at the weekend. It was brilliant.
We were at Tockenham Reservoir, near Swindon.
Obviously he battered me into oblivion off the next peg – but it was interesting to pick up a few things along the way.
We were both fishing the feeder in about 10′ of water, 40 turns from the bank on a point.
Des started on the method – I was on a normal feeder (one of Kevolios – very nice indeed!!).
Des chopped and changed baits for the first half hour to find out what they wanted. It really was as if the fish weren’t there at all – until he hit on the right method and the tip started to go around.
This, to me, was really interesting. He had total confidence the fish were there – but were just being finicky. There were a few indications on the tip – but no wrap arounds. He reckoned the bream in there LOVE groundbait and were pecking it off the method feeder, leaving the hookbait intact.
He seemd able to read what was going on under the water – and eventually sussed out a hair-rigged pellet was the way to go. Sure enough, it worked and the bream started coming.
On the normal feeder, I simply couldn’t get a tap. I swapped hooklength diameters, sizes and baits 3 times before eventually swapping to the method and starting to put fish in the net.
Des discovered occasionally swapping groundbait to dampended micros on the method brought big fish in – but weirdly, not every bung. You’d wait ages for a bite, but when it came it was a real slab of about 4lbs – instead of the pound skimmers we were getting on the groundbait.
Eventually, Des swapped to a cage feeder – and continued to get fish. I stayed on the method and was actually catching faster than him for about an hour. (was I chuffed…..just a bit!!)
The key seemed to be casting, casting and re-casting. Never leaving the feeder on the bed of the lake without any activity for more than a couple of minutes.
Eventually though, the fish stopped feeding in my peg, and carried on his his. Why? No idea…..
Des even went and sat on my box, checked my set-up etc. and didn’t catch – while I was getting wrap-arounds on his gear and catching.
He said it fished hard and we managed a measly 200lbs of bream between us (he had about 120lb of that at least!!!).
A couple of other interesting bits….
His groundbait mix was much wetter than mine – although both stuck to the feeder well. I’ve always tried to use groundbait as dry as possible.
And casting practice is an absolute pre-requisit if you want to be succesful. He can drop his feeder ”on a tanner” as Keith would say 99 times out of a hundred.
My accuracy improved vastly as the day wore on – but was wayward at the start. This almost certainly explains my slower catch rate at the start, and the fact it improved as the day wore on and my casting improved.
TF_Fordy.
