How to catch 101 Bream

Here are some combined thoughts on catching bream. Bream maestro Arron and two crew boated 101 the other day, so I'm going to share some of his tips and my own. There are some good fish around Boulder, Bullocks and Hounds at the moment so hopefully these will help.

1. Use small hooks: I use size 4 down to size 10 but watch that the smaller hooks are not too soft. Bream fight hard and can straighten a small hook. Try trout fly hooks and barbed carp hooks.

2. Use a mono hook length of 15lb or less. Bream will shy away from heavier mono.

3. Use a simple trace with two clear booms or small 3-way swivels, don't use beads or heavy booms - bream will get frightened.

4. Bait with a strip of squid, mackerel belly or garfish strip, about 1cm x 5cm hooked at the end. Alternatively use half a small squid head.

5. Hook lengths can be from 40 cm to 1metre, depending on conditions.

6. Rig your lead with one or two booms above it: bottom one about 10cm from the lead, the one above it should be adjustable. Try moving it up from about 30cm if you are not catching - at slack water bream feed further off the bottom.

7. A bream bite is the classic tugging rattle. Arron recommends not striking - let the fish take the bait then wind in - if it has taken the bait in its mouth, tightening up will hook it.

8. If you miss a bite then get no more for a few minutes, wind in and re-bait. Somehow a fish can register one bite but take two baits! Also, bream like very fresh bait, they will often ignore a bait that has been in the water ten minutes. Keep re-baiting.

9. Keep feeding ground-bait in to keep fish interested. I like to lose feed squid chopped into fragments into the water, just a squids-worth every ten minutes. In deeper water over 35 feet or in very strong tides you may need a bait dropper - see here for a cheap tip. Better to have little and often than a bagful you leave in all day.

10. Use a soft rod. If you are using braid and a stiff rod you can pull the hook out and also there will be more resistance when the fish takes, which can put them off.

11. Female fish fight harder. You can recognise them from their girly pinkish hue. Please put them back to spawn.

12. Keep only as many as you can eat, and preferably just males. Minimum size is 9.1inches/23cm length. They make great eating when fresh, but lose a lot of flavour and texture if frozen for too long.

13. Try float fishing at slack tide if bites fall off. The fish may be up in the water, and a sliding float will cover more ground and depth options to find the fish.

Thanks again to Arron for some of the tips, and to Tony for taking me out on Monday. We had a great session, with plenty of bream action. We kept just a few for the pot and I can recommend simple grilled bream with salsa verde!