Sunday October 13^th – Kingswood RBL Club Match, Bristol Avon, (The Crane), Keynsham – The Bream Said No!

With the river fining down nicely after an exceptionally heavy midweek deluge, it was going to be bream or bust for me today unless I landed on a peg that wasn’t a noted breamer. Actually, the river had lost a lot of its breamy colour since Friday and the pace was still a bit too heavy going for my liking. I wasn’t put off though and having drawn peg 6, which was the second last peg in the Little Ashtip field, my mind was made up. I was going to go for bream all day come what may.

Now, I drew this very same peg in the Riverfest Qualifier back in early September and didn’t fare too well. The river was up and coloured on that day too and the bream didn’t show for me although a few skimmers were caught from the next peg. That match was won with a 92lb net of bream from a peg in the next field and included fish up to 6lb. So, despite my previous experience on this peg, I was thinking perhaps 2 or 3 bream of that stamp is all that would be needed today.

This swim had a lovely-looking slack area on the inside but unfortunately, it’s full of snags as I found out last time. The photo is very misleading and doesn’t tell the whole story. It looks flat calm but it was far from that. Also, you can’t judge the pace of the water from the photo and I kid you not, I had to use a 50-gram feeder to hold bottom. I had 2 feeder rods with me today, both Shimano Hyperloops. One is a 12-foot medium feeder and the other is a 13-foot heavy feeder, which is the only one I set up. I also had a 13-foot Shimano Aero match rod with me for fishing the Crowquill Avon float but I didn’t use it.

On my side tray I had casters, maggles, pinkles, worms and bread. My groundbait choice was a 50-50 brown crumb and Sensas 3000 mix. I needed a rich, heavy groundbait with plenty of particles and I needed a lot of it. I had a kilo of each and most was mixed up and used during the course of the 5-hour match. So, on the all-in, I lobbed out 6 big feeders full of everything to about two-thirds the way across the river. I use a special big feeder for this initial offering. Then I put on a 30-gram feeder, baited up with 3 maggles and chucked it out. Within seconds it came all the way back so I changed to a 40-gram feeder. That came back to about 15 metres. So, I put on a 50-gram feeder and that stayed put at about halfway across.  

With my rod tip positioned up in the air, I waited patiently for that tell-tale wrap round… an hour later and I’m still waiting. You probably all know only too well that if you fish for bream you have to just stick at it and hope they’ll come along eventually. There’s been many a time when I’ve just about to give up after a couple of hours and then wham!.. 3 or 4 bream in a row before losing one and then nothing else for the rest of the day. Well, finally the bites began to come but it was only small roach. Then a switch to worm and pinkle brought an 8-ounce skimbo but nothing followed up other than a few gudgeon.

With 2 hours gone, I had about a pound a half in the net but from my phone call with Jason, who was on peg 1, I knew there wasn’t a lot being caught. I was tempted to set up a float road and see if I could get the roach going and maybe I should have but the bream were calling… in my head at least. For the next hour and a half, I caught the odd small roach and a chublet. Then with an hour to go and in desperation, I decided to try bread. I tightly pinched on 50-pence piece size lump of bread to my size 14 hook and lobbed it out. Within a few minutes, the rod tip sprang back and then dived forward.

I struck and immediately thought I had caught the bottom again. I had already lost 2 feeders on a snag out there. However, this time was different. As I kept the pressure on, hoping the feeder rig would pull free, I could feel something pulling back. It was a definite thump-thump indicating it could only possibly be a bream. It felt like a very heavy fish too but then in such deep and fast water, it can be difficult to tell for sure how big it was. So it started to come toward me as I kept on the pressure but then all of a sudden the line went slack and it was off. FFS! It wouldn’t be a day on the river for me without losing at least one good fish.

When I reeled in there was bream slime all over the hooklength. Although I was well and truly pi**ed off now, I had to keep going and try for another so I baited with bread and off I went again. It was about 30 minutes later when the tip bounced back and I struck into what I thought was another bream. This one was on for sure… It began to come in under pressure and was making a run for the inside cover. I thought I was going to lose it as it kited toward an overhanging tree on my right but I managed to steer it clear. It was now in the slack water and so I lifted the rod and… fook me!

It jumped clear of the water and spat out a… roach. Yeah, it turned out to be a pike of around 5lbs… FFS! The roach was pretty much decimated, with blood everywhere and he certainly wasn’t looking his Sunday best. Amazingly, he was still alive when I put him in my keepnet. Well after that I had one more roach to take my tally for the day to a very disappointing 3-1-0, finishing up mid-way. Well done to Jon Amato who won the match with 8-12-0, which included some quality skimbos from the end peg. There was only one bream caught during the match, which was about 4lbs and caught by Alan. All in all, it was a pretty tough day.

My decision to fish for bream all day, was in hindsight, not the best but you have to commit and then stick to the plan whatever the consequences. No doubt I’ll do it again and pay the same price.

Well, my next match is at Windmill Fisheries on Thursday. It’s a silvers-only match across both the Carp Lake and the Top Lake. I wonder whether there are many silvers left in these lakes now lol… Well, we’ll find out soon enough. Keep you posted.

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