A Tough Spring, Bitter Pills.

 

 Sometimes in angling you do wonder why you are dealt cruel blows, like you are being punished for something and the world conspires against you in a moment you wish it wouldn't.

 I decided to drop on to the Stow for the first of two overnighters in May, I knew conditions haven't been great of late and the reports off there in the main have been very poor considering the calibre of anglers who ply their trade there. 

 My tactics were similar this time to what I normally opt for, three rods with varying hookbaits and rigs ( 1x helicopter rig with worm kebab and groundbait, 1x method feeder with 2x8mm robin red pellet and the other trimmed down boilee on the method feeder ) with a nice bed of spodded groundbait, chopped dendro' and 2mm and 4mm pellet across the space I wanted to occupy and offer up as the place to dine for some huge slabs!

 Around 0830 I was fishing and just slowly getting my area tidied up when I saw a fish roll over alongside some trees on the left hand side of the reservoir. A seed was planted. I fished for a few hours without seeing more than two mooching carp which passed in front of me, no doubt eating flies. Around midday I got itchy feet and decided to bring in the rods, go to the loo and on the way around I saw Bream in the margin, close to the roll I saw a few hours beforehand, so once I did what I needed to and I went back to my swim, snipped off a method feeder and tied a size 6 to the mainline along with a small shot to gently counter the bouyancy, the bait? Bread of course!

 Within 2/3 mins the bread was snaffled and a nice Bream immediately rolled and took off into the deeper water, it was a good sight, the fish approaching the slow sinking bread, the bread disappearing and the strike setting the hook, text book stalking! It wasn't a bad fish either which ended up weighing 11lb 14oz and my first Abramis Brama of the season on my first outing for the species.

 Love dark Bream like this one, nice and thick across the chest and back, a fish that didn't look anywhere near spawning either, strange as last season they had gone by May 2nd, this fish is a couple weeks away by the look of it, which gave me confidence that there is still time as I haven't made an effort at all with them and feel I went too early with my Tench exploits and probably should be here! 

 Anyway, I slipped that Bream back and with a quick glance around it was clear the other fish I saw scarped, so I headed back to my swim and fished the whole night without a bite.....yawn. 

 

Laverly!

 I planned to wrap it up early morning but I did think about having another look along the tree line I had the 11 from the day before there was another four Bream present but these were MUCH BIGGER! 

 I went around to my swim, packed everything up and marched round with the single rod made up and I was ready to try and persuade another Bream. The fish moved beyond the willows that I spotted them in 10 mins previous and hoped they would come back into view, I had to wait fifteen mins before I see a silhouette of a Bream come into view in the polaroids, this fish was soon followed by the other three I'd seen earlier, these fish were big and my knees were like jelly and my heart rate was cruising up and I hadn't even hooke.......got one! F*CK!!! It's the biggest one! My word its huge were my initial thoughts, but this fish had some fight in it and headed away from me kiting left beyond the willows and made a decent effort to take 25-30 yards of line which is unusual for a slab but this was a certain PB, when I got the fish closer to me I could see the hook right in the corner of its mouth in a thin bit of lip skin, this is when I started to really worry and as it got within 10ft of the net cord it rolled a couple of times and shaking its head and then the tension came off and took me a split second to realise she had come off.

 F*CK NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Gutted just does not cut it, not one iota. I seriously considered jumping into 6ft of water fully clothed as the Bream lay on the surface for what seemed like an eternity before righting itself and sauntering off into the distance, I simply could not believe that happened, those are the moments in angling you dread and wish you never experience another one.

 I would not be exaggerating if I suggested that fish was around the 17lb mark, it was easily the biggest Bream I'd ever seen and I got plenty of time to look at it, both attached and not !