Bream

[Edward Adcock]

On the rare occasion I catch bream I feel sullied, especially if it's from a still water. I have to wash my landing net as soon as I get home. Around West Oxfordshire river match anglers are obsessed with the species. They are the prize fish. It's the first question I'm asked by a passing angler, 'any bream?'. When pleasure fishing they don't bother weighing a 5lb looking chub or a large roach but will weigh a 3lb bream. I chatted to a club member yesterday and was desperate to ask about their fascination with bream but got the distinct impression this individual would be offended.

Are bream held in high regard elsewhere? If so why?

 

[Mark Kingston]

I quite enjoy bream fishing esp this time of year. I must agree about the stink and slime thou. They sometimes put a bit more of a fight this time of year only a little thou .

 

[Joe Winstanley]

Big bream (9lb +) are impressive looking fish. And the real bigguns from low-stock waters are incredibly hard to catch by design, and usually the result of a carefully planned and determined season or two long campaign.

I've yet to catch a 15lb barbel, but if I could choose between a 15lb barbel and a 15lb bream then the bream would win hands down! That's not to say I prefer bream as a species, but I regard catching the bigguns by design as a hard a branch of specialist angling that there is.

One of my favourite catches by any angler in recent years is the 20lb bream caught by Gary Knowles back in 2017 from a proper heartbreaker* of a natural glacial Mere. Awesome angling.

* or headbanger depending on how you look at it !

 

[Joe Winstanley]

This is the beast:

Gary Knowles Ends Four Year Quest For Bream | Drennan International

The biggest bream of 2017 topping the scales at 20lb 7oz caught by specimen angler Gary Knowles. It’s a capture that well-respected specimen all-rounder Gary Knowles described as ‘a dream come true’ when he smashed his personal best during a session at an ultra-tough 90-acre northern mere. This...

www.drennantackle.com

 

[Edward Adcock]

This is the beast:

Gary Knowles Ends Four Year Quest For Bream | Drennan International

The biggest bream of 2017 topping the scales at 20lb 7oz caught by specimen angler Gary Knowles. It’s a capture that well-respected specimen all-rounder Gary Knowles described as ‘a dream come true’ when he smashed his personal best during a session at an ultra-tough 90-acre northern mere. This...

www.drennantackle.com

Terrifying

 

[Paul Whiteing]

 

[Mark Swaby]

Match anglers will be obsessed with Bream because you can build big weights with them easily and big weights mean a big cash pay out. They rarely fight , snag you or come off and they usually travel in big shoals. Back in the 80's Thames matches could be won with Chub or Bream ,maybe the chub have taken a back seat to the Bream now. You might find the question is being asked by someone practising for a Match a few days later trying to find out where the shoals are.

 

[Simon Archer]

I've a friend who Carp fishers, and when he catches a Bream he won't even land it, preferring to un-hook them in the water. Some Carp anglers must have caught some stonking Bream in the past and never given them a second thought. Shame really.

 

[Edward Adcock]

Back in the 80's Thames matches could be won with Chub or Bream ,maybe the chub have taken a back seat to the Bream now.

In the summers of the 1990s huge (tennis court size) shoals of bream could be seen on the surface of the Thames with dozens of peripheral chub. I lived at Sandford on Thames then and some anglers would turn up with garden wheel barrows of bait for the tail end of the weir. It was literally shovelled in. Match weights are really low these days and three chub in the keepnet usually means you're a winner. The only shoals of fish I have come across in the Upper Thames over the last 15 years are formed by bleak.

 

[Mark Swaby]

That area of the Thames was alive in those days. I did very well fishing Matches at Radley the next section downstream in the 80's. I won a couple of 120 peg Winter leagues and had a second and two thirds. Vince from Davies tackle used to do the pay out and used to always take the mickey. It was nearly all far bank Chub fishing with chub weights up to 48lb but I did get a 58lb bream win on a big inter club match . Sad to hear its so hard these days.

 

[Graham Elliott]

At Sonning and on the Barnett stretch downstream during the close season you could see masses of bream darkening the surface in 100 yard shoals.

Fishing for barbel at Sonning we often use to catch fish to over 10lb. A tap tap tap and slow pull round and heavy weight till surfacing downstream

There were so many bream that a mate and I would find even fishing 50 yards apart after a hour bite less or so we would get bites at the same time when the shoal arrived.

So...what has happened to our rivers?

 

[David Craine]

Strange that this breamy subject should come up now..

My eldest son is presently employed as a commercial diver, he is working in Germany on a contract to replace a concrete bed on a large Commercial lock between the River Havel and a large lake , the lock has been blocked , a lot of steelwork is being upgraded and the slab is being removed on the river side, it is a big job, about the size of probably ten tennis courts , the present concrete slab is about 3 feet thick, and the job is to totally remove it and replace with a thicker bigger slab. The slab is being drilled to reduce the slab into bits about the size of a pool table and then the “bits” hoisted out .

You can imagine the industrial noise being made, core drills, coffer dams beig constructed , power drivers , hydraulics, you name it, it is there...

Now I come to the bream, out of interest my son one day took a dive a hundred yards or so further down the river during his break, and swam into a huge shoal of bream, he did not find out how big it was but he said they were everywhere from the bottom to mid water, he had not seen them in the working area at all,he thought no more about it , but told me via watsap.

A week or so later he turned up, and started his days work, he was first in the water , and was amazed to see the bream shoal was now swimming around above the concrete slab amongst the steelwork, chains, drills etc, not only were the bream there, they were crowding in and the ones on the bed were actually laying on the bottom sideways , with the others swimming above them, the fish were actually in the way of the work and they seemed oblivious to the noise and disruption.

When working, my son always has a go pro type camera on his helmet so the job can be viewed by the other Divers to see where they are at, he took a 2 min clip of the bream shoal and watsapped it me .. it is amazing, I cant load up the video in here but will attach a still or two later.

When my son had finished his dive he was wondering why the bream shoal suddenly appeared, looking downriver he saw that there was a flock of about 100 Cormorants that had appeared , he went and dived under the birds, where the bream had been, the river was barren of fish. It seems that the bream were more frightened of the birds than the industry.

the below picture is above the bream shoal whwr some of the steelwork is being upgraded/removed.

A couple of days later, after being “harrassed “ by Bream, he turned up for work and the shoal had vanished, you guessed it, the Cormorants had flown away, he had a swim dowwnstream and the bream were back again, leaving the work area abandoned . The video is a couple of minutes long, and shows in detain the sheer numbers of fish involved, the above couple of snapshots dont really do it justice.

David.