Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.71 (Bream, Roach Bream Hybrid)

I wondered when you would want to know how to go about catching bream. These fish can be as aggravating as the carp in its most tantalizing mood. When fishing for bream you can expect first class sport or absolute disappointment. They either feed all out or go on a hunger strike.

There are two kinds of bream - silver and bronze. You will catch silver bream but I should say you would be angling for bronze. There are no big silver bream!

To what weight does the bream grow? The biggest ever recorded in the UK was one weighing 22 lb. 11 oz. If you catch a four pounder you can be pleased with yourself, though six pounders aren't all that rare. Of course there are the occasional eight or ten pounders, and if you take one of them it will be an opportunity for the glass case and gold lettering. I'm still waiting!

The bream is a tricky chap. When I have had a blank day fishing for bream I often think of the picture of the monks who haven't had a good day's fishing. Very doleful they look! The picture is Tomorrow will be Friday and we've caught no fish today.

Carp and bream were the monks' fish on Friday which was, as you know, a meatless day. I used to think to myself that they must have had a few hungry Fridays. And so they would, if they'd had to depend upon a good catch of bream or carp every Thursday! But the monks were as artful as the fish. 

They were always fishing and kept the fish alive in special small ponds stew ponds - from which they could net them when needed. And they stuffed them with herbs, baked them in butter and wine. I wonder if they had bilious attacks?

I'll begin telling you about bream with a piece of sound advice.

If there is any wind from the east in the air, angle for some other fish. I have never caught any bream when there has been an east wind in evidence. Further, I have found that winter fishing for bream is useless. Bream don't like the cold, and I can't say I blame them. 

Spring and summer is the time for bream, but I will qualify that by telling you that they dislike hot sun. Before the sun gets too high in the sky and when it begins to drop in the west those are your times. Mark you, when on a summer day there is a soft south or west wind ruffling the water, and a little cloud in the sky that is very different!!

Now what is very different than the average canal angler is that I fish crude, very crude indeed. Take the set-up for this morning's attack up Tramp Alley. A small Guru foam pellet waggler and a 2SSG shot tied directly to the 5lb main line with a size 10 hook.

A large chunk of bread for bait, no messing around here. Go big or go home. But there is a good reason though and that is because the fish that swim in these waterways tend to be a decent stamp of fish. Scale down to a 22 hook no doubt you'd get more bites but these fish see little pressure, so you need not worry about fishing too heavy. 

I wanted a buoyant float though because chub are here in small numbers and it's nice to get the float to do it's thing in the oxygenated swims to try and temp a wary chub.

It didn't take long to get a bite either in the first swim. The sun was heading up having arrived before 6.00am and I knew it would be tougher later on especially when the day was going to be >20 degrees and the pub garden called. Anyway I missed two sail away bites but after hooking up at the next dip of the float the culprit was a small bream and not a chub I was hoping for. 

For a small bream it put up a decent fight and when returned I thought I'd be on for a few more bites. Oddly though that was it so it was time to get on the rove.

More my fishing style this where in the 4 hours I fished I managed 11,500 steps moving from swim to swim looking for signs of fish and also underarming the rig to fish tight to the reeds. Reeds always hold fish because the sanctuary they seek and 2 more bream caught using the same large bread tactics considering the conditions weren't brilliant for fishing I thought I was doing rather well. 

Nothing big showed though maybe the cold overnight temperature put them off. Anyway one of the sail away bites was from this lovely roach bream hybrid that nailed the bread flake within minutes of being out. 

A hard fighting one too, aren't they all. I won't tire of catching these, so much character and shows that for a small fish they can give a good account for themselves. Anyway, that was my lot !! with the towpath now like the M25 is was time for the off when the rest of the world has woken up.