Enchant Me.

A beautiful summer's dawn through a polarized lens.

 Just the tonic for a 3:40am alarm, feeling like a zombie with a couple of hours sleep, only the fact that I felt confident I would catch my target species was the reason that I didn't impersonate a homeless person sleeping under a tree whilst I caught up with a few winks, but needless to say I carried on with my plan and that plan was to catch a Bream.........not just any Bream either.

 For a long time I have been itching to catch some very large slabs and I know a couple of places where they are present but by no means easy as most specimen sized fish seldom are, after an hour last night spent preparing my ground-bait and mix which consisted of 4 loaves of white bread and 2 kilo's of sweetcorn, it sounds a lot but if there is one thing that must be known about Bream is if you get a hungry shoal of them in front of you feeding the more bait you have the better to keep them around and get through the shoal as best as possible, if you lack the bed of feed they will move on until they find another food source.

 I planned to fish the morning and probably leave around mid-day as the Bream will probably chill out for the hotter hours and come on the feed during the evening, by 6:45am I had my first enquiry as my float lay flat on the surface after being properly cocked, with out waiting for the float to go back down again I hit it, fish on....a good fish too, the fish stayed fairly low whilst heading for the weed but it wasn't a Carp, so I was sure it were a Bream then a big black shape came up to the surface and surrendered, I thought to myself immediately that it was a new PB it was massive, first take of the session and it was exactly what I came for, a 42'' Carp net and this Bream did it's level best to fill.

 A big Bream was exactly what I set out in the morning so it was a great feeling to have caught one on my first trip after Bream at this venue, but was it a new PB?, unfortunately not as it weighed 10lb 11oz, so it was shy by 3oz to equal or 4oz to set a new record, but a great snotty.

 Then 6 and a half hours passed before I managed to convert my next chance, bites were few and far between but a change on to a fine quiver tip on a lighter setup proved to be successful as I had got connected to a strong fish, then the clutch started to scream as whatever it was made off at pace, this was no Bream, so a Carp it must have been but for a submerged weed bed to aide the fishes escape I will never know, then the session took another twist as I had another good take on the feeder which was a Bream and a monster of a bin-lid at that, an easy double I estimate about 13lb, then about 20ft out the hook inexplicably popped out.  I felt rather annoyed at that happening and a bad taste in my mouth.

 20 minutes later the loss of the monster slab was softened as I bent into another big Bream, as soon as I got it to the surface I knew this was a double figure fish, whilst playing the Bream into the awaiting net I was thinking that I have had 2 double figure Bream in all my years of fishing and now I have had 2 in 7 hours!

10lb 7oz, another lump.

 The session after that tailed off and the bites dried up considerably with just one more Bream caught but it wasn't a lump like the other two fish, at around 6lbs it is probably one of the smallest fish present, with some small Perch thrown in for good measure just before leaving, all of which were taken on a 7g Mepps Gold Flash spinner. 2 double figure Bream in a day, I left there one happy man indeed now for a much bigger I know they are here just where?

Little guy?? at 6lb it was on this occasion.

Immaculate condition stripey.