The venue was RMC’s Kingsmead No 1 I felt it was time to redress the balance and decided to book a couple of days off work and have a concerted attempt at catching a nice fish or two. After looking through a number of old angling magazines, trawling the internet and making more than a few phone calls I decided the venue would be RMC’s Kingsmead No. 1. Principally a carp venue (where isn’t these days!) it also contained a reasonable head of double figure bream which I was led to believe often fell to the carp angler’s baits. The ticket was purchased and now the hard bit would be to find a couple of free days in which to fish. I was currently in the process of moving house, starting a new job and about to go to Cuba for a family holiday. It took a bit of juggling but eventually the plan was to do extra hours in work Monday to Thursday, travel to Kingsmead Friday morning, then fish Friday and Saturday night before travelling home early on Sunday morning. That gave me just enough time to move house on Monday then fly out to Cuba early Tuesday morning – hectic?…you bet, but once I had made the arrangements I was bursting with excitement. The wife wasn’t exactly enamoured with my plans but let’s face it, when are they ever? Despite being a southerner Neil is a surprisingly nice chap The night before I was due to fish I made a call to Neil Wayte, one of RMC’s bailiffs and a bloke who I had the great pleasure of sharing a couple of days fishing with a two seasons ago. Despite being a Southerner, Neil is a surprisingly nice chap and as ever proved to be a mine of information. Whilst arranging a permit I had also taken the opportunity to bend the ear of RMC’s Fishery Manager Ian Welch who was also extremely forthcoming with information. When Neil’s advice of swim selection mirrored exactly that of Ian’s I knew exactly the area I would be heading for the following morning. The only question was would one of the ‘hot’ swims be free?
40, and I still get the jitters I set off at 3.30am on Friday morning, this would not only get me past that nightmare known as Birmingham before the usual gridlock set in, but hopefully it meant I would be at the lake early enough to secure one of my chosen pegs before other anglers arrived. At 8 am I was fumbling with the combination lock trying to open the gate but my hands were shaking so much with excitement that I could barely turn the dial. This year will see my fortieth birthday yet I still get the jitters and do find it amazing that fishing still has this effect on me. I was so hyped up at getting two consecutive days on a Southern gravel pit and was so desperate to find one of the swims I wanted free that the next few minutes disappeared into a blur. The first thing I noticed upon arrival was that anglers were already present in the car park swims, one down two to go. Heaving the ridiculously oversized rucksack on my back I locked the car, which still contained the rest of my gear, and hastily made my way back out of the car park and towards the channel. The first swim, known as ‘the helipad’ was taken – sh*t!…..two down, one to go. The two guys fishing off ‘the helipad’ heard me panting up the lane, popped their heads over the undergrowth and shouted hello. Waving politely back I tore over the footbridge like a squaddie on manoeuvres, turning left onto a small track and ploughed through the undergrowth eventually coming out into a well manicured double swim. It was empty……..yeeessssssss ! Too tight to buy a trolley I dropped the rucksack and for the first time began to relax. I was well happy, and now there was now no need to rush. I unpacked the stove, kettle and a few bits and pieces before making a brew, later I could make two or three trips to the car to bring the rest of my gear (us Northern blokes are too tight to buy a trolley!) and I leant against a tree and began to take in the atmosphere. A large plane thundered overhead, momentarily breaking the spell. Those anglers used to fishing in the Colne Valley will no doubt be aware that everywhere around here appears to be right on a Heathrow flight path. A little disconcerting at first but I can honestly say after a couple of hours you stopped noticing them.
All my eggs in one basket After a bit of deliberation I decided rather than spread my rods around I would put all my eggs in one basket and bait a large area directly in front of me. The spot I chose was around 6-7ft deep at a distance of around 45-50yds. There was a bit of light weed around but I found an area around 15yds long by 5yds wide where the bottom was clear and consisted largely of gravel coated in a fine layer of silt. A marker was placed in the centre of this and around mid-afternoon I baited the entire area with about two gallons of particles and about 50 balls of ground feed. The particle mix contained CSL pellets, several different sized trout pellets, several tins of flavoured corn and a large amount of broken boilies. The ground feed mix contained a generous amount of Robin Red and coprah molasses, both of which are first class bream attractors. The left hand rod was positioned on the edge of the baited area, the 2oz lead was enclosed with a PVA bag full of broken boilies and trout pellets as was the size 10 hook baited with a single 8mm fruit boilie. The middle rod was set up with a small method feeder and the size 8 hook baited with two 8mm Activ-8 boilies. Again several broken boilies were pushed into the method mix and the point of the hook gently pushed into the ball to prevent tangles on casting. The right hand rod was again set up with a 2oz lead, but this time with a small handful of dried-out flavoured sweetcorn placed in a PVA stocking which was nicked to the size 10 hook. Bait on this rod was the new Kryston ‘Doppel-Ganger’ artificial sweetcorn popped up just an inch or so. No way I wanted a screamer from a nuisance carp As darkness arrived the feeling of anticipation grew, my eyes constantly scanned the water for signs of rolling bream but the surface in front of me remained unbroken. Way out in the lake several large carp crashed heavily and I began to pray to myself that the bream would find the baited area before the carp did. Just before dusk I had accurately repositioned all my baits and despite the fact my distance was marked with braid and a far bank marker lined up for each rod, the last thing I wanted at this peak time was a ‘screamer’ from a troublesome carp.
Around 1.00am the action stopped almost as quickly as it had started and the horrible realisation that the fish had passed through without taking a hookbait began to hit home. Exhausted from the early start and long drive I climbed onto the bedchair and draped the open sleeping bag over me. Watching the pale green isotopes from the sanctuary of my open bivvy soon had my eyelids closing but a couple of quick bleeps had me bounding from my prone position over to my rods. The bobbin on the middle rod was tight to the butt, peering closer I saw it twitch slightly and lifted the rod gently into the air. The dead weight on the other end came slowly toward me for a few seconds before I felt the tell-tale ‘thump thump’ of a large bream. Gently I eased him towards me and after a couple of sticky moments when it kited around one of my other rods my headtorch picked out a long looking fish gently kiting toward the waiting net. Peering into the folds the fish looked huge but upon lifting it onto the unhooking mat it was apparent that the bream wasn’t particularly thickset or deep. Still it certainly looked to be a ‘double’ and despite its lack of girth was scale-perfect with jet black fins. “It troubled neither the scales nor the camera” The scales read 10lb 4oz, my first night on Kingsmead and I had achieved my goal. The bream was placed in a large, framed sack ready for photographing at first light and my bait repositioned. A little nip of the hard stuff to celebrate and I sat back on the bedchair totally contented. Suddenly the bobbin on my left hand rod dropped six inches before ‘bouncing’ around on the line – surely a bream trying to twist the hook free. I gently leaned into the fish and it felt heavy, winding down I gently pumped it a couple of yards towards me feeling for the expected ‘thump’ of a large bream. No such luck, in a matter of seconds thirty yards of line was stripped from the spool as what was now obviously a carp surged out into the lake. Ten minutes of firm coaxing soon had the culprit in the net. It was a very, very stocky mirror probably about 18lb’s but as it was not my target it troubled neither the scales nor the camera and was quickly slipped back with the minimum of fuss. The next few hours of darkness passed slowly with no more action, although I did hear a bit of a commotion from the helipad. With a bream in the sack, (albeit a purpose designed one which keeps the folds of mesh away from the delicate bream) sleep doesn’t come easy and every half hour I opened the top zip to make sure the bream inside remained upright and not in any distress. With the carp anglers on the helipad still fast asleep I decided not to disturb them and took a couple of shots on the self timer as the sun rose over the wooded far bank.
“As usual I promoted the north/south divide” Around 11 am I got a text message from Neil asking how I had fared. As usual I took the opportunity to promote the North/South divide by telling him I’d had a double and a ‘ratfish’ explaining however, that this was no great shakes as I was only fishing another ‘easy southern water’. He responded by suggesting I took the fish home as we could do with a couple of decent fish living North of Birmingham. After exchanging a couple of insulting texts I called him for a more serious chat and it was at this point that Neil told me something that was to have a big impact on the result of the session. He told me that on the ‘mead’, it wasn’t exactly rare for the occasional bream to be caught in the middle of the day, even in brilliant sunshine and recommended that I get my baits out pronto. I looked at the rods, my hooks were dangling from the butt rings like they would be at this time on a Cheshire mere. The plan had been to snatch a couple of hours sleep this afternoon, then to bait up again around 4 pm and fish hard through dusk and the hours of darkness. Usually, daytime fishing for large bream in conditions like this is a total waste of time, but then again I’m NOT used to fishing gravel pits.
“How can anyone NOT love big bream?” At 1.15pm in sweltering heat the bobbin on the right hand rod dropped slowly down to the floor. To ensure this wasn’t a line bite I wound the bobbin all the way back to the top without lifting the rod from its rest, it continued its descent. This time the bream gave a great account of itself, at first it kited way out to the right and as the swim had a large overhanging alder protecting a large bay beyond, this could have been disastrous. With only a size 10 hook I put on as much sidestrain as I could and eventually the fish turned and by now it was boring in the deep water a couple of rod’s length out and when it surged to the left forcing me to push my rod underwater ensuring it didn’t tangle with my other two rods I began to think I may have hooked a small carp which was beginning to wake up. Suddenly it appeared two or three feet below the surface and in the crystal water it looked massive and I was also hugely relieved that my first instinct was right and that it was in fact a bream. From this point it came in pretty easily and although not as big as it first appeared it weighed 11lb 4oz and was still a magnificent example of the species. On the bank I could see that although maybe not as long as last night’s fish it was truly a fantastic specimen. Deep bodied and extremely thickset, fin perfect and a lovely deep bronze colour which when viewed from above was almost black in appearance. How can anyone NOT love big bream? As if by magic at that very moment one of the bailiff’s appeared and was able to do the honours with the camera. Again one of the carp guys fishing the next swim came over to watch the ceremony though I suspect the real reason was to scrounge another cold beer off me – bloody southerners! Cuban barracuda? Nah, big bream for me! That night I baited up heavily and really expected the fish to get their heads down. As it happened I never had so much as a line bite but I suppose I needed a good night’s sleep ready for the long drive home. Although slightly disappointed at the lack of action I was more than happy with the overall session. My first ever brace of doubles had been landed and all that now remained was the little task of moving house. Within a few short days I was landing 30lb+ barracuda and huge snappers whilst perched high on the volcanic rock off the Cuban coast. From the boat I would land large kingfish and hook and lose monstrous tarpon. But none of this would compare with the thrill of being sat over baited rods at dusk, with the distinct possibility of a large bronze slab paying me a visit. Most will think me mad, some, bitten by the same bug will understand. What I do know is I long to return…..and return I will. RMC’s web site: |
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