Taming Trent bream on the feeder (Victoria Embankment ) 08.10.22
CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW THE FACEBOOK PAGE!
Tackle
Rod
Leeda xgt 13ft power feeder fitted with a 2oz tip
Reel
Garbolino challenger feeder reel (designed for distance casting)
Line
8lb Maxima
Hooklengh
Preston fluorocarbon 8lb
(The stiffness and abrasion resistant qualities make this perfect for those big fish on Rivers)
Hook
Kamasan B911 in various size 10
Bait
Groundbait
Plain brown crumb.
Cheap and cheerful.
Bream are not choosey when it comes to what they eat. The groundbait is there to create an area for the fish to feed over and to carry the loose feed.
Pellets
4 and 6mm pellets.
Bream love pellets so they are al noways in my bait bag.
Pellets keep for ages before going off so they are easy to keep and one of the cheapest baits out there.
Sweetcorn
One of my favourites both for loose feeding and hookbaits.
Sweetcorn is dirt cheap and bream love it.
It is usually my go to hookbait if I want a quick bite as it stands out well on the bottom with its bright yellow colour and is easily picked out by the fish.
The session
River bream are predominantly nocturnal so as always I arrived late evening giving me enough time to set up and get some bait into the swim before darkness falls.
The chosen rig is my go to feeder rig which consists of a snap swivel running on the line onto which I can attach my chosen feeder. The swivel simply butts up against two small rubber float stops which are pushed up against a large overhand loop containing a quick change swivel to make changing the hooklengh quick and easy.
My hooklengh is about 18 inches in length with a large size 10 kamasan b911 hook and a quick stop which I will use to hair rig 3 or 4 grains of sweetcorn.
To begin my session I wanted to find the deepest water in the swim where I thought the bream would feed most comfortably in the colder temperatures. I attach a 30g bomb to the snap swivel and cast at various distances trapping the line with my finger as the bomb hits the surface and counting in my head until it hits the bottom. A 30g bomb will generally sink about 1 meter per second. In this particular peg I found that the deepest water was three seconds deep (3 meters) and was just before half way and anything past that produced a count of about two seconds (2 meters).
After finding the chosen distance I then placed the line under the clip on the reel and made a few casts in the area hitting the clip and feeling the bomb down to the bottom before dragging it along the river bed to make sure the area is snag free and not too silty. If snags are present you will feel the bomb lock up and bump over them as the bomb is dragged towards you and if there's silt or weed present the bomb will plug into it and require a lot of pressure to be released.
Now that I had confirmed the area was snag free and a good place to present a bait I clipped on a large 40g cage feeder and made five initial casts to get a small bed of bait down. On these initial casts I load the feeder with pure ground bait with the intention of introducing loose feed through the feeder as I fishee allowing me to regulate how much I feed.
With the initial feed in the swim I then re-cast every 10 to 15 minutes to regularly top up the area whilst I await my first bite.
I patiently waiter for just over an hour before recieving the first indication on the rod tip.
Surprisingly this turned out to be a small skimmer bream which is a rarity on this particular stretch. With the rig re baited and re positioned I sat back focused on the rod tip awaiting the next indication.
About half an hour and another cast later the rod tip dropped back and started twitching in the darkness. This time I connected with a much more solid resistance and a big Trent bream was soon scooped up with the landing net.
I re cast the rod and this time just after settling the tip hooped over and I was into what instantly felt like a massive fish. It held out in the flow and was a few seconds before I managed to gain and line on the fish. The fish then rolled on the surface about 15 meters out. Wanting to lower the chance of a hook pull I lowered the rod and applied pressure from the side to make the fish fight deeper. I waited till the fish was in netting range before raising the rod back above my head. A huge Trent bream graced the water's surface and I struggled as I folded it into the landing net.
This was a huge River bream and well worth waiting for on a cold night. I have caught a number of double figure stillwater bream in the past but this was by far the biggest River bream I had ever seen in all my years targeting them throughout the country. Maybe not the magical double but I estimated this fish to be well over 9 pounds and clearly dwarfing the previous fish of the session which was around 6 pounds.
Excited by this capture I quickly got the rig back in position but the shoal had moved on either due to clearing out the bait or by being spooked by the previous capture. I gave it another hour without any indications until the rod hooped over just as I was packing up. This bite resulted in another large bream of around the five pound mark.
Great blog
ReplyDelete