After receiving a phone call from a member of the Angling Press asking for a comment about a near record bream of 19lb 4oz, I did no more than grab my spod rod, collect a few bits of Sonu baits together and drove as fast as I could to Nazeing Meads!!!

Bream on the feeder

As I am the Fisheries Officer for the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority I have known for a long time about the amount of extremely huge bream that are in the Nazeing complex. But as I'm a little bit carp orientated, I haven't had the opportunity to have a dabble and see how big they actually are. With the possibility of a new British record before spawning, I put the carp rods away, got the bream rods out and booked a few days off work to have a go.

The wind was a gentle south westerly breeze and it was a lovely sunny day. I decided to concentrate on the South Lagoon at Nazeing Meads as in the past I know that they have spawned in this area.

The first swim I looked at, the Lawns has produced some very large Bream in the past so I decided this was worth investigating.  I pre-baited for two days with a mixture of Sonu Bait’s Hemp and Hali Crush, exploding  fishmeal ground bait, Method mix, 6 and 4 mm Halibut Pellets. I also added 4 tins of corn every day; this was at the back of a gravel bar in 14 feet of water, 60 yards out.

On one rod hook baits were Sonu Baits' new 10mm Tutti-Frutti boosted wraps and the other rod was maize and Korum's artificial corn. These were fished with a size 8 ESP D7 on  12” 10lb ESP Ghost fluro carbon. I used block end feeders but cut off the end. I did this to protect the ground bait as it was in deep water. If I had used a cage feeder it may have not made the bottom. After a minute I pulled back a foot to place the hook bait in the content of the feeder.

Started fishing at 15:30

8lb 4oz     18:00   Maze and plastic

12lb 8oz   18:45   Boosted Wrap (new PB!!!!)

I noticed that I was getting a few false bites and came up with the conclusion that fishing free running rigs may be costing me a fish or two, so I shortened my hook link to 6” and put Korum lead clips on with 2oz griper leads. I then made up small PVA bags of my dry mix.

10lb 10z   20:30   Boosted Wraps

9lb 6oz     21:10   Maze and plastic

10lb 1oz   23:10   Maze and plastic

10lb 2oz   01:00   Boosted Wraps

10lb 13oz 01:40   Boosted Wraps

Then I had 2 male tench 6lb 2oz and 5lb 12oz...

By changing to the semi fixed setup, every fish that picked up the hook bait resulted in a bite; my catch rate improved and the false bites stopped instantly. As the temperature dropped the bites seemed to dry up.

At about 10am the next day the weather had changed dramatically to very strong winds and lots of rain. It was still blowing in the same direction but was extremely cold. As I had had no action since the early hours and with no sign of any fish in the area, I started to wonder if the shoal had moved on the wind.

I took a walk up to a known big bream swim and found fish rolling like mad. The shoal had moved. With that I decided to move swims. This area, called the Earwig has a very deep drop off to 21 feet 30 yards out. I put out a small amount of my ground bait as the fish were in the area and waited to see if they would stay. I started fishing about 16:30 still using the semi fixed set up. I didn't get my first bite until 20:00; unfortunately this fish came off. Then the action started again.
 

9lb 10z    21:15   Boosted Wraps

9lb 2oz    21:50   Maze and plastic

12lb 2oz 03:30   Maze and plastic

8lb   4oz 06:00   Maze and plastic

Did I enjoy myself? Oh yes. I know I didn't even come close to catching the British Record but with the thought of the next bite being a Bream the size of a dustbin lid, got the old heart racing every time I had a bleep. Will the carp rods be put away for ever? I don't think so, but I will definitely be back down Nazeing soon for another go for a big old slab.

The Feeder Rig crude but it worked