A few weeks ago it was difficult to get a bite at the place

A few weeks ago it was difficult to get a bite at the place. Five pounds was top weight from the Yacht lake on one match which seems hard to believe when you consider that just two weeks later virtually everyone recorded double figures of mainly bream. A week after this there were double figure weights of roach and perch on the pole as well as the more usual bream catches. Why a venue changes so much is the subject of great debate on my circuit at present. Some reckon it’s all down to temperature. Others reckon the wind has a lot to do with it and then there’s the subject of air pressure, which many believe holds the key to fish wanting to feed or not. Whatever the reason it’s been difficult to predict what is going to happen from match to match or indeed what species you are best targeting. For me, that adds up to good match fishing.To cover all eventualities it’s been important to prepare for both a pole and a feeder approach. To get the best from the venue at present you need to carry a lot of kit. Two stands, one to sit on the other to put the bait on are necessary. As the lakes are quite shallow and used to fill the local canal systems the levels drop a lot during the summer months. When the pole plays a part I think it’s an advantage to sit out as far as possible and there’s no way you can do this without platforms. All I need now is a pack horse to get all the gear and groundbait to the peg !My first win of the season came from peg 100 on the Engine House lake and was a really enjoyable match, as I ended up putting 38.2.0 of bream onto the scales in a match where fifty eight of the seventy seven competitors recorded double figures. Before I tell you about the match, I have to say I was really disappointed to recently learn that British Waterways, who own the lakes, are intending to turn the Engine House lake into a carp fishery later this year. Apparently the level is to be lowered and the current bream and roach stocks removed to make way for a stocking of carp. Clearly they are looking to create a new Drayton after seeing the success of that particular venue. I think it’s shame to lose such a good silver fish venue and personally I would have preferred to see more bream and roach put into the venue. There are enough carp venues around now and there are a lot of anglers who prefer to fish for bream and roach. If British Waterways developed the silver fish fishing more I am sure they would get the turnouts they required to make the place a commercial success. Unfortunately it looks as though it’s too late for any about turn so we’ll be left with one lake which will surely become a method feeder carp water and the other a silver fish lake. Apparently some of the bream that are to be netted will be put into the Yacht lake which will obviously benefit that lake and I am told they will be improving the banks considerably to make them more angler friendly. That will be good and I’m glad we’re still going to be able to have one quality bream and roach lake but it will be a sad day in my opinion when we lose the Engine House lake as a bream venue. I really enjoy bream fishing. Perhaps I should re-word that and say I really enjoy bream catching. There’s nothing worse than sitting for five hours on a bream water without bites. In a situation like that there is very little you can do to make things happen if the fish don’t appear in your swim. However, unlike middle Severn summer matches where your fate is usually sorted at the drawbag, on a venue like Earlswood you don’t really know where you want to draw as bream, being bream, move about from day to day. It’s also possible to be without fish for three hours yet still frame on some days. They are the reasons I have avoided middle Severn barbel matches this summer. Don’t get me wrong. I still love catching barbel and chub on the river but this summer I’ve preferred to keep those sessions purely for pleasure. Barbel fishing is so exciting when you’re on a shoal but the shoals aren’t as widespread as they used to be and it has to be said that on places like Bridgnorth and Bewdley there are considerably more bad draws than good ones. The thing I enjoy about bream fishing is that there are so many things you can do in order to win. On the face of it most anglers are fishing the same way using a swimfeeder but over the course of a season there are always certain names who win and frame more than others. These are the anglers who have sorted out little things to give them an edge over the opposition. Quite often even the successful ones do it differently to each other but bream fishing is very much about belief and confidence in what you are doing. For example at Earlswood right now there are successful anglers who are totally confident in using a chopped worm/ caster feeder approach with worm on the hook, whilst others who are also successful are still adopting the more usual Earlswood tactics with squatt and caster feeders and red maggots on the hook. There are so many different ways of approaching a bream match and so many questions to answer. How far out?what size feeder? what bait?what groundbait?do you ball it?if so how much?how long do you leave it in?. These are just a few of the questions you need to make a decision on to be a successful bream angler. Others like terminal tackle arrangements add to the equation. What length tail?what size hook?braid or line?. If you’re using braid what shock absorber system are you going to employ?. The size of feeder you use and the distance you want to fish governs the choice of rod you need to use. Hook size also comes into this equation. Generally if you are using worm you can use a bigger hook than you can if you’re using maggot. In turn this means you can use a more powerful rod which enables you to use a bigger feeder, more accurately, at distance. The use of line clips is now fairly commonplace with anglers fishing for bream but how many anglers adjust the distance they are fishing during a match by increasing or reducing the length of line to the line clip?. Not enough I would say. It’s often possible to get extra fish, particularly towards the end of a match by taking the line off the clip then re-clipping two or three yards longer. If you’re on a lot of fish at distance try re-clipping shorter. I recall a match in Ireland where I was catching well clipped up at fifty yards. To catch them quicker I reclipped at forty yards but still left the original clipped length of line in place so that I could return there if the shorter distance failed. It didn’t fail and I continued to catch well so I re-clipped again at thirty yards. I now had three clipped line lengths on the reel. As it turned out I caught well until the end on that particular match but the way I had fished meant I could return to the forty or fifty yard mark at any stage. For instance if you bump a bream in the feeding shoal they will often back off. If they swim off to either side there is little you can do but often they move out and re-group on your further line. This, in turn can influence your decisions on feeding the swim accurately. A lot of anglers are afraid to fire balls of groundbait out with a catapult as it’s difficult to be accurate at distance. A useful way I have found is to remove the feeder which is attached to a link swivel and replace with one of the big M.A.P. Carptek “carp splashers”. Cast this out to the line clip and you’ve got a perfect marker to fire your balls to. Okay you’ve still got to get the balls to the marker float but it’s a lot better to do it this way than to try and guess the distance. By using this marker float you can add balls at any time in the match by simply clipping the float on in place of the feeder. So you can see, for me, bream fishing is becoming a lot more than just “chuck it and chance it”. Done correctly I think it can be just as rewarding as running a float down the Severn in the winter (not quite as enjoyable though as running a float down the Severn in winter and catching which is surely the next best thing to sex !!!). My 38.2.0 win was an interesting match inasmuch as I elected to fish a very positive approach which proved right on the day. Using a big NISA feeder stuffed with worms, casters and a new prototype bream mix I am working on, I caught well throughout the day with worm on the hook. I’ve written before about the fact that you can only have a perfect match if the fish respond to what you are doing. On this match I felt it was important to keep feeding lots of bait through the feeder in order to dominate the area I was in. With good anglers either side of me it would have been easy to lose the fish either side. Several times during the match the fish did wander off but when they came back they stayed long enough for me to capitalise – due, I think, to the amount of bait I’d put out to ambush them. Three days later I returned to the venue and practised at peg 39 on the Yacht lake and took over forty pounds of bream fishing in the same positive fashion. Four days after this I came third from peg 49 on the Yacht lake dam wall with 15.12.0 and yet the approach could not have been more different to my previous two sessions. On this occasion the lakes were much more difficult and a significantly more cautious approach was necessary. After just half an hour I felt a positive approach wasn’t right. Bank walkers on the hour confirmed the lakes were fishing hard but by this time I’d already reduced the size of my feeder and reduced the amount of feed in the feeder to mainly groundbait with a small amount of loose feed. The tactic worked well for me to give me third spot in another very close match. I’m certain on this match that many anglers probably went much too positive on the bait and, in turn, killed their swims. It’s obviously difficult to assess a venue that changes as much as this one had but the key to success on both matches was to regulate the flow of bait in line with fish response. Added to this there are always a lot of walkers at Earlswood to keep you informed as to what is happening. If the match where I came second had been another bag up day, I would soon have heard and adjusted things accordingly.HOME INTERNATIONAL – KILBIRNIE LOCH, SCOTLAND I was delighted to be selected by Dick Clegg and Mark Addy for this years Home International on Kilbirnie Loch in Scotland. I last fished the venue on my first Home International in 1987 so I was looking forward to going back there. I travelled up to Scotland with team mate Sean Ashby and a Thursday afternoon practise with England team mates Kim Milsom, Mark Pollard, Derek Bennett and Mark Lucas produced little. The Scotland, Wales and Ireland lads were also struggling to catch any quantity of fish and our only hope was that with bait going into the venue the fish would come to us for the next days practise and for the two day match weekend. The Friday practise was split over two banks of the Loch. We were joined by the rest of our squad and Kim, Mark, Derek and Mark were joined by Stu Conroy and Lee Addy on one bank, whilst Sean and I were joined by Tom Pickering and Keith Hobson on the car park bank on four pegs which were to become “E section”. The four of us all caught a few fish, mainly perch, with Keith doing best with around thirty fish on the end peg. Wagglers between eight and fourteen grams worked best for us with double red maggot on a size eighteen hook being the best bait. Further along our bank the lads from the other countries were also catching a few fish but the lads on the left bank (sections A to D) were struggling. Our team meeting on the night saw us all agreeing on a long range waggler approach for the following day. Then it was a case of the section draw. I was informed I was in E section where we had practised. I felt that the end peg would definitely dominate this section and hoped that coach Mark Addy would come back with peg one at the number draw next morning. Instead he came back with peg four, which I didn’t really fancy at all section-wise. The draw put me to the right of the peg I’d practised the previous day but with Jack Tisdall of Ireland on one, Clive Roberts of Wales on two and George Glenn of Scotland on three, I had my work cut out. Our peg four draw gave us two end pegs with Kim on the end of D section. Remember last month I told you about the fact he was due ten years of bad draws ?well, another man who is long overdue the same sentence is Tom Pickering who was at our other end peg at the far end of my bank in J section. Come to think of it I reckon Tom is due more than ten years payback when the day of reckoning finally comes !!. With a good wind blowing onto our bank I thought we could be in for a good days fishing but what little action our section had was all over after two hours. For the last three hours after the wind dropped we caught nothing as the fish moved away to the right eventually settling and feeding well in the last few sections. I had a very frustrating day as I had thick weed growth out to the twenty five metre mark which resulted in over two kilos of fish getting fast and coming off. Jack Tisdall won the section with 3.130 kg., Clive was second with 2.990 kg., I was third with 2.750 kg. and George fourth with 1.800 kg Those lost fish had cost me a comfortable section win as I would have had almost five kilos without the weed problem. Elsewhere, the other lads in our team had performed brilliantly with seven section winners, a second and another third. This gave us fifteen points, well clear of Scotland, and Wales tied on twenty eight and Ireland on twenty nine. Individually Tom Pickering took full advantage of his end peg draw to take first place with 10.880 kg Then came Steve McCaveney, next to Tom with 8.860 kg. and Stu Conroy at peg four in I section with 8.610 kgBarring a disaster on day two we were now clear favourites to win. For my part I desperately wanted a decent draw on day two to contribute a section win to the cause. I was therefore disappointed when Mark Addy came back with E section for me again. With the rules meaning we couldn’t draw another end peg I’d now be on peg two or three in the section. At the peg draw next day, peg two it was – which meant that for the three full days I’d been there I’d been on E3, E4 and now E2 !!. Conditions were windy again at the start and Clive Roberts, who was with me again in the same section, this time on one, reckoned it would fish. I wasn’t so sure as the fish had moved out of our pegs en bloc the day before and I doubted whether they had returned. Unfortunately I was proved right and we couldn’t get a bite on waggler, pole or whip. After an hour the section was being won by Sean McEvoy, last years European champion on peg three with one tiny roach. I decided to change tactics in the hope of snaring a perch. I took off the size eighteen hook and replaced it with a size fourteen and onto this I impaled two sections of broken worm. Unbelievably I hooked a perch of around six ounces first cast on this but imagine my horror when it came off just a foot from the landing net! Fortunately seven more followed successfully, plus one which I lost in weed. With an hour to go I was winning the section comfortably despite not having a bite for three hours. Clive to my left on the end peg had got just a few micro perch on the whip, Sean was still on one tiny roach and Ian Whitson on four was also struggling. Then, in the last hour Ian stared to take a few quality perch on wagglered worm to win the section, relegating me to second. The weights in my section were pitiful. Clive weighed 0.070 kg., I had 0.860 kg., Sean’s roach went 0.040 kg. and Ian won with 1.620 kg. Individual winner on day two was Kim Milsom with just over five kilos of mainly perch from the end section where Tommy had been the day before. Team-wise we’d done even better than day one with a thirteen point total. Seven section winners and three seconds made up the points. This gave us a two day total of 28. Scotland followed on 53. Then came Ireland on 59 and Wales on 60. Individually Stu Conroy took top spot with two section wins and a 13.250 kg. total. Thanks go to the Scots team for laying on a very well organised weekend for us all.

As we set off for the five hour drive home I was just glad there wasn’t another match on the Monday as I’m sure I’d have been on E1 if there had been! Finally, I’ve just returned from a memorable practise session on the Warwickshire Avon at Evesham. I went down to try a few things out and caught double figures of roach, perch and small chub on caster and hemp then topped it off with a double figure barbel on a pole rig. I was trying for eels and I managed a couple of good eels as well. My next big weekend is the John Smith’s festival on the same stretch. I’ll let you know how it went next time.