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Avoiding bream !!

J

Jack Magill

Member
Hi all , first post on the forum , hope everyone’s well and catching a few .
I’m back barbel fishing the river Teme properly this year after a good decade away . I’ve had a good start to the season with numerous fish up to double figures from various stretches .
I’m now fishing a stretch that holds a few barbel and a couple of good ones but it also holds a resident shoal of around 35 bream between 3 and 7lb which are a nightmare .
I fish with a home made boilies/sticks and paste , but on this stretch when you introduce any loose feed they eventually find it , usually within half an hour as the shoal moves up and down the stretch .
Yesterday evening I tried siting it out into dark with a large hair rigged lump of meat but after a few plucks and rattles I reeled in after 2 hours with no meat on the hair , this could of been down to possibly an eel or maybe a chub but I’d put money on it that it was the bream.
As autumn is on its way I’d like to start introducing a bit of bait , obviously my usual 14mm baits get hammered by the bream so I’ve rolled some 18mm diameter sticks and snapped them into 30mm long sections to feed to try get the barbel accustomed to my bait but I’m sure the bream probably manage a fair few of these baits also .
I’m just looking for peoples advice on how to avoid them .
As I roll my own bait I can roll hookbaits to any particular shape and size .
Options id think would be to either fish a much longer hair (25mm between hook bend and bait ?) with a standard 13-16mm bait but I’m sure they’d eventually pull this bait off the hair , so do I also boil the hookbaits a lot longer and air dry a lot longer to make a much harder bait ? Or do I roll some 20mm ish hookbaits and fish a pair of these on a hair to try to stop them getting them in their mouth in the first place ? Also would a run rig as apposed to semi fixed lead set up help with the bait not being pulled from the hair ?
I know a lot of this will be down to trial and error but just wonder if anybody has experienced the same problem and how they combated it .
Sorry for the long winded post and cheers in advance 🤙
 
On the Thames we have used baits up to about 45mm and we still catch bream !

Tiger nuts are recommended as an anti-bream bait by carp anglers. But on the few occasions we have tried them on the river we haven’t caught any barbel on them. But then again we don’t catch many barbel full stop…..
 
If I was plagued by bream on the Teme (just had the odd one) I'd be going with ~18mm bait, 25-30mm hair, off a #2 Gripz. And sit on my hands 🤣
 
Double 18-20mm boilies on longish hairs stops them on the Trent for me. I’ve had as many as 30 Bream in a session before giving in and moving to the big doubles, which very few Bream seem to be able to manage.
 
If it were me I'd just concentrate on fishing as effectively fir the Barbel with good baits and rigs and just take the Bream as they come along. Bream will eat most of what a Barbel will. Trying too hard to avoid them will reduce your chances with the Barbel I think. Sounds to me like you're doing well! 👍
 
Simon Archer said:
I think I'd be tempted to feed some (lots) of groundbait in another swim, and hope they settle in there. Something sweet maybe.
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This is a tactic recommended to keep the Chub at bay as well isn’t it and could work. Feed something cheap and small to preoccupy the bream elsewhere and fish for the barbel but it does rely on them being the type of Barbel that are resident not travellers or you could potentially just pull your target away as well.
 
Tim Marks said:
On the Thames we have used baits up to about 45mm and we still catch bream !

Tiger nuts are recommended as an anti-bream bait by carp anglers. But on the few occasions we have tried them on the river we haven’t caught any barbel on them. But then again we don’t catch many barbel full stop…..
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Yeah I really wouldn’t have any confidence fishing tigers for barbel , I know they’re a great bait for carp .
 
Rob Mitchell said:
Double 18-20mm boilies on longish hairs stops them on the Trent for me. I’ve had as many as 30 Bream in a session before giving in and moving to the big doubles, which very few Bream seem to be able to manage.
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Yeah I think I’d be most comfortable fishing like this to be honest , hopefully soon as the water gets a bit of a rise and colour it will bode better for a bit more of a cruder set up 👍🏻
 
Andrew Jackson said:
If it were me I'd just concentrate on fishing as effectively fir the Barbel with good baits and rigs and just take the Bream as they come along. Bream will eat most of what a Barbel will. Trying too hard to avoid them will reduce your chances with the Barbel I think. Sounds to me like you're doing well! 👍
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I’ve done this on numerous sessions and it’s just relentless bream mate , one of the first times I fished it the barbel were feeding amongst the bream but chances are so slim as only very few barbel if not only 1 or 2 sometimes amongst 30 odd bream . After catching a couple of bream the barbel soon disappeared and spooked off . I could play the numbers /chance game but fishing time is limited and just trying to put things in my favour without compromising a pick up to much from a barbel if possible , just looking for the happy medium really .
 
Thanks to all so far for reply’s .
Think I’m swaying more to dropping a bit of bait in else where ( tin of cheap corn scattered ) to occupy the main shoal of bream , then fishing a 18mm bait on a long ish hair as the bream shoal does split a bit and you get a group of 3/4 bream moving up the stretch away from the bulk shoal .
Has anybody had much experience with using long hairs for barbel ?
If so how long and do you think it hindered your chances of barbel much ?
 
Ive just read Tony Miles, Elite Barbel for the umpteenth time.

When he was on Adams Mill before it became well known he would regularly introduce large amounts of corn into a different area of the swim to concentrate the chub.

Once they were preoccupied he would focus on the spot he knew the barbel frequented and more often than not it worked, leaving his rig in prime position to be picked up by a barbel.

Possibly the best book ever put together about barbel fishing and in particular singling our bigger fish or fishing for low stock numbers when other species are present.

Thanks

Lewis
 
Lewis Baldwin said:
Ive just read Tony Miles, Elite Barbel for the umpteenth time.

When he was on Adams Mill before it became well known he would regularly introduce large amounts of corn into a different area of the swim to concentrate the chub.

Once they were preoccupied he would focus on the spot he knew the barbel frequented and more often than not it worked, leaving his rig in prime position to be picked up by a barbel.

Possibly the best book ever put together about barbel fishing and in particular singling our bigger fish or fishing for low stock numbers when other species are present.

Thanks

Lewis
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Sounds like a decent plan mate , I I’ll keep my eye out for that book as well .
Cheers Lewis
 
Try a KD rig and use a hook two sizes bigger than you think reasonable. So if you think size 8 go for a size 4 hook with it.

The bream are fussier than barbel and they’ll reject the bait when they feel the hook - just got to get over it looking agricultural but it’s worked for me on the Thames.
 
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