With the cold and windy weather we have experienced this week it feels more like late September than the middle of August so I decided to put the barbel gear away for a few days and head over to the St Ives Lakes complex in Cambridgeshire for a bream session.
Pitching up in a swim that I haven’t fished for probably five years, but which always used to produce bream, I found a couple of nice clear areas amongst the weed at comfortable range and baited with a 50/50 mixture of Dynamite Baits Marine Halibut Method Mix and fine brown crumb laced with a jar of mixed particles, 1kg of 3mm pellets, 1kg of 1mm pellets, a tin of XL corn and a few broken Red Fish boilies.
Each day I topped up with a similar amount of bait and fished either whittled down 15mm source boilies or the excellent 14mm Hair-rigable Halibut pellets on scaled-down carp rigs.
The first night was a blank, but mid-morning I had a screaming take that I managed to fluff as the hair had tangled around the eye of the hook.
The second night was more productive with a 10lb 4oz bream at 1AM, a missed bite at 3AM, followed by a 12lb 8oz fish at 6PM, and then a 9lb 8oz fish around lunch time.
The final night brought an 11lb 12oz fish at 2am, then a lost fish at 7am and then a final little ‘un of about 8lb at 9am.
Lovely steady fishing and I got the impression that the fish were loners rather than tightly shoaled up and that with more baiting the fishing would have got better and better.
Hopefully I will get back in the next few weeks for another go as the bream go to a seriously impressive size in this lake.
Dr Paul Garner
You can read more about Paul’s exploits at www.drpaulgarner.co.uk.
