Severn Heaven
The lower Severn is a river fisherman’s paradise with double figure barbel and bream, huge chub, perch and roach, and 20lb plus carp, pike and zander all in residence.
In fact there is such a dazzling array of specimen-sized species on offer that it’s hard to comprehend how anyone can find himself stuck in an angling rut.
However, in a moment of quiet reflection during this year’s close season, I realised that that is exactly what had happened to my fishing; I had un-wittingly become barbel-obsessed. A bit of rough mental arithmetic revealed that for almost five years 90% of my (non-predatory) sessions on the river had been exclusively concentrated on catching whiskers.
With such a wealth of fish life in front of me; it was clearly time to restore some semblance of balance… but where to start?
Nuisance Species?
I struggle with the concept of ‘nuisance species’ at the best of times, but as I sat and mused over the trials and tribulations of the last few seasons I gradually un-earthed a rather disturbingly cavalier attitude towards bream that had, somehow, insidiously crept into my fishy psyche.
Even in the darkest depths of my myopic barbel obsession, I can honestly say I have never been ‘disappointed’ to welcome an accidental slab to the net, but I had rarely accorded even the most physically impressive of lids the honour of a photo, let alone the solemnity of the weighing ceremony.
I resolved to set things right in my addled angling brain and show some long-overdue respect to the great ‘hub-cap’ of the waterways by spending the first few weeks of the new season solely in pursuit of Severn slabs.
Sabrina’s lop-sided leviathans can reach double figures on the lower river, and ironically the trick to catching the bigger bream is to avoid the barbel!
Location
By late May plans were being hatched with my fishing buddy, Jim, for a seriously concerted snottie campaign.
On a large river like the Severn, pre-baiting is essential if you want to achieve consistent bream results. We decided to go for it in a big way and hammer the bait in for ten days before the glorious 16th. Given the effort and expense involved in such a venture, Jim and I did not want to waste valuable resources feeding off greedy barbel, so we needed to find a suitable swim.
There is no such thing as a ‘whiskers-free’ stretch of the lower Severn, but there are pockets where they are very thin on the ground and in such spots the bream reign supreme, and they can pile on the pounds with little competition. Fortunately locating an area with potential is not really that difficult.
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| Dicky with a 7½lb specimen bream |
Barbel hotspots tend to be pretty clearly defined by bank-side features such as… well, barbel fishermen! And when you find a stretch with no barbellers that is still regularly visited by match fishermen, you’ve pretty much hit the jackpot. There is, of course, no guarantee that you will find the bigger specimens, but you can be fairly confident that with a little preparation you will catch your target species in numbers.
We chose our peg after consulting the angling oracle (our local tackle shop) and spending a couple of evenings walking the bank with a marker rod, looking for features and keeping a sharp eye for rolling fish. We eventually found both; our explorations revealed a sharp drop-off from 10ft’ to 13ft, and the glorious sight of broad-backed bronzies boiling on the surface sealed the deal.
Pre-baiting
There are vast shoals of very hungry bream in the lower river and we knew it would be virtually impossible to hold them in a given area for any prolonged length of time, so we hoped instead that we would be able to train the fish to visit our swim every evening at a prescribed time.
The quantity of bait you introduce is not an exact science but ‘lots and lots’ would be a ball-park figure; it is virtually impossible to put in too much food. Realistically the only limiting factor to a baiting campaign is your budget. We chose Vitalin, a dry cereal-based dog food, as it contains a variety of different textures and tastes, and most importantly it is cheap (£10.99 for 15kg).
Preparation couldn’t be simpler. Pour boiling water onto the dry mix and stir. Allow the bait to sit and fully absorb for a couple of hours (stirring occasionally) and you end up with a heavy, sweet and sticky mixture that sinks very quickly, making it perfect for accurately baiting in a deep swim. To the basic mix you can add particles (we used hemp, pellets and peanuts) and samples of your chosen hookbait.
| Peanut Preparation |
Peanuts have always been a controversial bait, but providing they are prepared properly they will not cause fish any problems.
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Each night we visited Sabrina at the same time of the evening and chucked in about 15 grapefruit-sized balls of goodies, confident that we were hitting the right spot every time.
Long Campaign
I have to admit to feeling a certain amount of frustration during such a long campaign. Not so much from baiting up when you can’t fish, but because of the huge numbers of idiots fishing the stretch out of season. We had to be very careful that they didn’t see what we were up to or all of our hard work would be in vain.
As the days ticked by to opening day, things were looking increasingly positive in our swim, and excitement levels were rising. Bream were rolling regularly and enthusiastically at feeding time, and we had even seen the odd carp gate-crash the party.
Carp have become quite a feature on the river since the summer floods of 2007 engulfed a number of commercials in the Severn valley, and although we had ‘largely’ factored barbel out of the equation, we did expect to encounter the odd escapee over the next fortnight or so.
Finally…the Glorious 16th
Opening day finally dawned and conditions looked perfect. It was warm and overcast with only a gentle breeze, and the river had maintained an even level for more than a week. As we walked down to the swim that evening with fishing gear finally in tow, I have to admit I hadn’t been so excited about the first session of the season for many years.
Our plan of attack was not exactly what you’d call traditional breaming. For a start we would initially be fishing two rods each; one would be cast regularly with a large method feeder to keep the baited area regularly topped up, and the other was to be a speculative ‘sitter’ on the extremity of the main feed zone, with what is essentially a standard barbel set-up (straight running 2oz lead, ESP anchor rig tubing and a flying backlead).
We chose the method feeder for the sole reason that it can deliver a much larger payload than most conventional feeders and given the fact that we had limited ourselves to short sessions, we wanted enough food in the vicinity to delay the shoal as long as we could. I prefer to use the finned variety (Drennan 50g) rather than the flat-bed feeders because they load up nice and evenly, and support a bigger bait ball.
Because there are so many small fish in the river that will snaffle a modest hookbait, I opted to fish a 15mm Nash Shellfish Sense Appeal boilie on both set-ups. The hookbait on the method rod is not buried in the ball but gently pushed into the outside. This way you can be sure that the sticky Vitalin mix does not conceal the hook and as soon as it hits the river bed you are fishing effectively.
We settled into our swim and before tackling up introduced half a dozen balls of Vitalin.
It became clear from the moment we cast in that our hard work was going to pay off, as our rod tips immediately took on a life of there own and began frantically jangling with line bites. It wasn’t long before the liners became real bites; and on that first evening we shared a haul of 15 or so slabs between 5 and 6lb 8oz. After a frenetic couple of hours we finally called it a day when I lost a double figure carp at the net.
It had been a great start but we thought we could do better, so we decided to up the feed levels, just to see what would happen…
| Bream Care |
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Bream, like barbel, are very sensitive fish and should be handled with great care.
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A Week in Breamland
The second night was essentially a carbon copy of the first, with the bream coming thick and fast but still only averaging 6lb. Jim couldn’t make it the following evening so I returned on my own to find the swim absolutely alive with fish. This time I decided to restrict myself to one rod, and thank God I did.
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| 8lbs exactly! |
My first bite came within seconds of casting and this time it was clear from the heavy thumping on the rod top that I was into a bigger fish. At 7lb 8oz (picture well above) it was the biggest fish we’d taken from the spot by some distance, and the session just kept getting better. I landed 9 slabs averaging a shade over 7lb with the best 8lb exactly, plus a bonus mirror carp that may just have nudged 10lb.
I looked at my watch and had to pinch myself, I had only been fishing for one and a half hours.
That glorious opening week continued in a similar vein with our shoal showing up every evening like clockwork. We finally decided to call a halt to operations when we reached the end of our third sack of Vitalin, and it became clear that the bream weren’t going to get any bigger.
It had been the most enjoyable start to a season that Jim and I had ever shared, and with not a single barbel in sight, I felt I had finally made amends for overlooking and under-rating the Severn’s majestic slabs.
