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17 May

WHAT’S IN THE BOX? – BREAM

Fishing for a variety of different species can lead to an almost limitless number of ways of forgetting those little essential bits of tackle. Multiply this by the distance from the nearest tackle shop and the chances of putting the mockers on a trip before I have even started are astronomical. To try and combat this, I now try to keep a tackle box set up for each species, or style of fishing, and though that it might be of interest to take a look at the contents of my boxes.

Generally speaking, I tend to stick to a few tried-and-tested rigs, so the amount of terminal tackle I actually need is relatively small, making life a little easier. Take my specimen bream fishing for example: I tend to use just two rigs. A ‘traditional’ three-lobed Method feeder, or a semi-fixed lead, very much ‘carp-style’.

 

I do love fishing the Method feeder for bream. The concentration of bait that it produces and relatively tangle-free set-up is ideal when you are leaving the rods out all night. On the right gear you can also cast a Method feeder a very long way indeed.

 

Having tested a lot of different Method feeders my choice is the current large Fox model weighing 2oz. This always lands the right way up, and because the weight is along the length of the feeder, it tends to settle flat on the bottom and not sitting nose-up. My hooklength is normally 10lb Berkley Fluorocarbon, attached to a size 10 Nash Fang X hook. This creates quite an aggressive angle between the stiff line and hook, which I think helps hooking.

Carp-style bream fishing.

Whilst the Method feeder works really well where the lake bed is relatively hard, over silt I switch to a lead clip system instead. A lot of the time a feeder can sink into the silt a little and this can cause the hooklength to lift up; swapping to the lead set-up means the weight can sink into the soft bottom without affecting the hooklength.

The hook remains the same on this rig (a size 10 Nash Fang X), the hook length material is either fluoro or 15lb Nash Combilink strippable braid, with just 1cm at the hook end stripped back and the rig steamed straight. Hookbaits, incidentally, are normally either a 10mm boilie-plastic corn combo, or just a trimmed 15mm boilie.

I do use leaders when fishing in shallow water, or a long way from the bank, just to try to pin down the last few feet of line. To be honest, a lot of the time this is negated by bits of weed on the bottom which lift the leader up, but at least the fish seem to spook less when touching a leader, compared to nylon.

Spot-On line marker, a Spin Doctor to remove line twist, braid stripper tool, tungsten putty and small screwdriver are almost ubiquitous in all my tackle boxes and, along with a few 2.5oz flat pear leads and Method feeders, that is about it.

Bream fishing can be very tough, so I keep to tried-and-tested tactics.

paulgarner
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