This Sunday I was off to the Fennes on the Hill and Black lake, after my practice on the thursday I was concerned the fish may be bunched up in a few pegs out of the wind, so I felt as though not drawing this area could make it really hard!
It had been ice cold over night and there was cat ice in places on the lake, I was hoping for a draw on 15 or 16 to be out of the freezing wind and hopefully where the fish were. I ended up drawing peg 26, which in normal conditions I would consider a good skimmer peg, but being the other end of the lake to where I caught Thursday it could be a quiet day!
I decided to fish a 6 meter line where I would introduce one small golf ball of joker to start, and an 11 meter line where I decided to put about 400 ml of joker in 10 balls, with 3 really rich balls in the center. The idea being I could start by catching a few little fish, to avoid a blank and also give me somewhere to go when things were slow. The idea of feeding loads on the long line was down to how I had caught on Thursday, I really felt as though you had to get allot down there, and once the fish finally came in you should catch for the rest of the match, for some reason on Thursday the bream didn't respond to topping up after eating the initial feed, so id opted to just feed more in case they didn't respond again! I also set up a tip rod to chuck out for the first half hour in the hope of a lucky rap round.
Rigs for the day were my favorite Drennan lake 0.8g float (unfortunately they no longer make this older sensitive pattern) this was for the long line which was about 7 foot deep, tied to a 20 Drennan silverfish onto an 0.08mm hooklenght. The short line was identical except with a 0.4g float.
I started the match and fed my lines, I opted for the trusty 50/50 black lake and roach mixed in 50/50 with some damp leam. This is a reliable mix that never lets you down if you are trying to catch bream or roach when fishing bloodworm and joker.
After 2 chucks and 30 bite less minutes I was on the 6 meter line, which produced one roach in 15 minutes, id avoided a blank at least I then tried the long line and caught 2 more roach before nothing. Back on the short line and I had a small skimmer about 8 oz, this was a good sign and gave me confidence there must be a few in the area as you very rarely catch just one, I had a couple more in the next 30 minutes before topping the short line up and deciding the long line must be ready.
I caught a 2 lb bream first put in on the long line followed by 3 roach, it was good to be getting bites as no one else seemed to be able to string two bites together.
Back on the short line and I had a couple more roach, but they didn't seem to be coming very fast,so i topped up with 2 balls and then went back on the long line.
By this time it was 12 o'clock and 2 hours had passed, I felt as though I was neck and neck with the people on 15 and 16 so felt as though I still had a chance despite being in what I thought was the wrong area.
I caught 3 bream on the bounce on dead maggot before not getting any more bites, I topped up with another orange sized ball and had 2 more bream instantly. It seemed as though they were responding to the top up balls well. I decided to try 4 bloodworm as a hook bait, as sometimes this can work really well for bream, and it was the case today as it completely outclassed the dead maggot.
I refined my feeding throughout the day, finding that it was best to top up with 2 golf balls of joker after every 3 bream, the last hour was a real flier and as well as good bream I started catching skimmers in between which meant I was putting something in my net every put in.
I finished the match with 19 bream and some skimmers and roach, for a final weight of 57 lb, a fantastic weight of silvers from what can be a difficult venue in the cold! second place finished with 16 lb, and weights of 15 lb and 14 lb were recorded.
It had fished exactly the same to when i fished it the Thursday except a few roach had fed, and also the bream responded to top up balls of joker, id caught two good weights of bream from opposite ends of the lake, which makes me feel I had a good method worked out. You never know if you were sitting on a ball of fish on venues like this, and I may possibly have done, but it did take 2 hours to get one to feed so it didn't seem like it!
I certainly feel as though I've learnt something in specific for this lake to catch bream, and hope to use this knowledge in future matches, the key was certainly to put loads of joker in at the start, and not worry if you haven't caught anything for 2 hours!
Next week I am off to Long pond in Clare I have never fished this place in the winter, which makes a difficult bait menu! I've opted to try a similar bloodworm approach to what I used this Sunday and also a pellet line with the option of corn as a hook bait. there are also some swims I may be able to fish the tip, but not knowing how clear the water will be or anything makes it hard to know what to do! I will simply take my gear and work something out when I arrive at my peg!
Thanks for reading,
see you next week!
Reece.
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