Bream Campaign 2015 Part One.

 Breaking the Duck:

 This season I have set my sights on catching some big fish and improvements on existing personal bests, the Bream are one of those species and I was due to start my Bream campaign on Tuesday, it may seem a little late to start targeting big Bream, the lakes that I will be fishing though don't open until the 16th June, but there was one place that I maybe should have tried earlier in the season for some reason simply hadn't got around to it. Today though was the time to head over with the hope of contacting just a few of the many Bream that this vast water holds.

Needle in a haystack.

 I set my gear down and did a half lap of the reservoir before settling in a swim where a couple of Bream were breaking the surface at around 50yrds, with them now spotted I knocked up around 5kg's of groundbait and 3mm pellets and spent 15-20min getting my bed of bait out into the open water to try and attract the shoals in with the view to then hold them in position whilst I get busy.

Just a small amount of the foundation.

 I set up both rods on the method feeder (30g) on a running rig in conjunction with sweetcorn both real and artificial, a tactic that I haven't yet used but felt confident it may work. Fast forward 5 hours and I was still biteless, with time still on my side I decided to make a move as I felt the Bream were in another part of the reservoir and the couple I saw weren't feeding, I started all over again with the baiting up and within my first hour I had a good run but failed to hook up, I was encouraged by this development and continued to throw balls of bait out and it wasn't long afterwards the same rod sprang to life as the buzzer let off steady bleeps as a fish moved away from me, I wound down and struck immediately to feel a good weight on the end and by the lack of a fight I knew it was my intended target and when she came up to the surface I was certain I had a double-figure fish first time of asking. On the scales though and the deduction of the sling she went 9lb 13oz....oh so very close.

Best of the season so far.

 She had a big frame and was sure she would do 10lb plus but I suspect it was at bottom weight as I think it was completely spawned out and unfortunately starting my campaign this late in the year you do run the risk of catching these colossal creatures at the minimum weight but a great fish to see, the weather got progressively worse too as I caught that Bream and the wind was really starting to push hard down the ressy, this was making things a bit more difficult and even casting was proving tough, I packed up around 9pm but prior to that I did have one more run which was fast and very furious, with a short sprint to the rod and strike I bumped what I thought was a Carp but a bump was literally all I felt, that was my lot but I shall be on their tails again come Tuesday, hopefully I'll find some in a willing mood.

Early afternoon...

Late afternoon....25mph winds and all that.