Being the all rounder that I am, I couldn't simply move on knowing that there was some seriously good fishing to be had. Now, no matter how Bream frustrate me whilst Carp fishing, when tackle was scaled down, they always provide a lot of fun. I was never going to catch any monsters, but I have a passion for all types of angling, and approaching a water as a match fisherman would, really appealed to me. My starting point was to work out how to fish the swim. It was very weedy further out from my marginal Carp spots, but I knew if I fed enough bait tightly in the middle, the Bream would clear me a swim themselves. This idea was certainly proven correct, as as soon as the bream located the bait, patches of bubbles emerging from the bottom were soon followed by clumps of streamer weed.

Knowing that weed was still going to be present, I opted to fish a much shorter hooklink than normal, one of about 5 inches long. This meant that my hook bait with single corn, would be less likely to get caught up on the streamer weed on the way down. A Fox open end feeder packed with fishmeal based groundbait was used, and before long i was bringing in Bream with no trouble at all.

The fishing was at times manic, and even though the weather became incredibly hot during the day, the fish just seemed to feed harder and harder! Even though no monster Bream were caught, plenty of fish to about 5lb provided me with constant action on the quiver tip. Another first for me was when I landed three River Tench back to back between the Bream catches. This made the the fishing a lot more interesting, and has given me some ideas for next season already. Every now and then, I noticed small fish jumping and diving trying to escape and unseen predator, perhaps it was time to change tactics altogether!