13 Double-Figure Bream in Two hours

In 1995 I made my personal best catch of big bream, a catch that Angling Times described as the best catch of big bream ever taken. The smallest fish weighed a little over 10lb, and the largest 11lb 10oz. The catch also included a roach x bream hybrid of 6lb 12oz and two tench weighing 6lb 14oz and 7lb 2oz. All the fish were caught in a mad period of just two hours. This is how it happened.

I arrived at the water in the early evening, straight from picking up my bait at my local tackle shop. I was on one of my favourite Cheshire meres for a night session, fired up by the capture of a 13lb 14oz bream only three days previously, which I'd had the privilege to witness and photograph for Terry Knight. I didn't fish the same swim as Terry, but headed for a swim with similar, but more distinct features; a plateau that dropped from a mere 3ft deep to over 10ft. It was the same swim from which I'd taken a 10lb bream a week ago.

I spent almost two hours in the boat, plumbing the swim and choosing carefully where to place my marker. I wanted to fish down the slope with three rods, one legering near the top of the plateau in 6ft, one half way down in 8ft, and close to the bottom of the slope in 10ft. I placed my marker just beyond the swim so that it wouldn't interfere with any hooked fish. Once that was done I spread about 5lb dry weight of groundbait in the area. This groundbait was 40% fine white crumb, 40% fine brown crumb, 10% crushed hemp and 10% Van den Eynde 'Expo'. On top of that I scattered one pint of casters and half a pint of white maggots.

I tackled up with rods of my own design and manufactured by Harrisons, the Interceptor', threading them with 6lb Maxima line and terminating in a fixed paternoster rig. This rig has a short, 6in bomb length and a 3ft hook length of 4lb Berkeley Trilene XL. The hooks were Mustad Pro Specimen Bream 6's, and each was armed with a large lobworm, which has proven to be the killing bait for most of the bream taken from this water in the past three years.

It was an uneventful night, which was not surprising, for the heavens opened and it rained continuously from dusk until 4.30 the next morning. The only activity was a few line bites and the odd 'bite' from flying bats. I couldn't sink my lines out of the way of the bats for I would then have been pestered with line bites from fish crossing over the shallow plateau, which is a problem most of the time even with lots of line kept out of the water with the use of high rod rests. We've tried to bait for them many times but the fish that cross the plateau never seem to stop and feed.

I made a brew of tea at 4.30am, just as the rain stopped, and was ready for the first bite when it came at 4.45am. That resulted in a 6lb 12oz roach x bream hybrid, my second biggest, for I already hold the unofficial British record (so I'm told, but who really knows?) for that variety of hybrid at 8lb 12oz from another mere, a fish I caught in 1976. Then I had the second bite at 5.15am, a bream of 10lb 2oz, and was rubbing my hands with glee, for the conditions were perfect, and I anticipated a big catch. The mere had been threatening to throw up something really special for a long time. Would it be now, and for me?

At 6.45am I hadn't had another bite, not a line bite nor a mere twitch. I couldn't understand it. Especially since I had seen two bream, one that looked like a hybrid, and an unidentified fish, roll right over my baited area. I felt sure there were fish in my swim, and the more I thought about it the more I was convinced they were preoccupied with the casters I had put in the evening before. This so often happens with many species - they can become preoccupied with casters to the point of ignoring everything else. The same thing had happened when I had my 11lb 4oz Cheshire record tench a few weeks ago when for weeks previously they had been feeding confidently on sweetcorn and then caster produced the big one.

I had two choices. I could tie on smaller hooks and leger caster. Or do what I had been threatening to do for some time when the opportunity arose, which was to slip out quietly in the boat and float-fish casters for them. I remembered the time about 15 years ago when I was faced with a similar situation on another mere, when I float-fished casters over a ledge to take a catch of 16 bream over 8lb, and then 17 bream over 8lb in two four hour sessions, and then a 27 bream over 8lb catch in a six hour session, which included the first double from the water. So the decision was made - boat and float won the day.

I pushed the punt over the plateau until I was between two and three rod's length from the baited area, then lowered the mud-weights into the three foot depth. The beauty of the situation was that I was out of sight of the fish which fed down the slope (see diagram right). I had tackled up my 12ft 9in Interceptor Specimen Float Rod with 5lb Maxima main line to a 4lb Berkeley Trilene XL hook length. This terminated in a Kamasan 14's Wide Gape Specialist hook. I shotted the sliding bodied waggler with a 4 AAA bulk and a No.6 dropper 9ins from the hook. The depth of the stop-knot was set to fish the bait, four casters, at 10ft, and when I cast into the 10ft depth at the bottom of the slope I allowed the natural drift to take the tackle to the ledge and lay the line down the slope.

My first cast was at 6am and I ran out of bait at 7.30am, but carried on fishing till 8am. I never waited more than two minutes for a bite. As soon as the line lay down the slope the float slid away. The bream fought really well on the short line and my first action was to apply as much pressure as I dared to get the fish away from the shoal and onto the top of the plateau where I could play them out and net them with the least disturbance to the swim. I loose-fed little and often continuously, with the emphasis on 'little', for I had just half a pint each of caster and maggot. At first I was concerned that any returned fish would spook the shoal so I kept the first six bream and the hybrid in a pike tube and two keepsacks but returned the rest immediately after weighing. Luckily, they swam off along the plateau and not back to the shoal.

It may seem somewhat ungrateful to say it, but the fact remains that I was a little disappointed that out of 13 double-figure bream, there wasn't one over 12lb. This is a very special water and, believe me, the biggest at 11.10 is only a few ounces above average. There are (were?) bream in there that can make your eyes water.

All in all I'd had an excellent two seasons, for the previous year I caught the Cheshire county bream record from there with a fish of 14lb 1oz, and the same year I took the Cheshire tench record (from a different mere) with a beautiful tench of 11lb 4oz.