Speed fishing for Bream


I don’t know about you but I have rarely caught really big bags of bream on the feeder. This may sound odd from someone who has probably spent more hours feeder fishing than most, but when I thought about it, most of the really big bags of bream I've taken have come on the pole or waggler.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining or knocking the feeder, I've caught hundreds and hundreds of GOOD bags of slabs on the feeder. But when it comes to truly huge bags... not that many!

So when I spent a day with Jan Van Schendel at Courcelles, a well known bream mecca in Normandy, I was hoping to get some tips on how to put together a really enormous bag of bream on the feeder, and Jan did not disappoint. It was also a good opportunity for Jan to put together a large bag in France, as it's not normally an area he visits.

What is a BIG net of fish?
I have caught plenty of roach and bream nets on the feeder in competitions... from a couple of kilos to over 30 kilos. I class these as 'good' nets of fish. This sort of feeder work suits my style of fishing. Building up swims steadily, playing fish carefully and using the feeder to put together respectable bags of quality fish. But as I have said, BIG nets of fish are not that common on the feeder.

Some of you might be confused by my comments already. Surely 30 kilos of bream IS a big net of fish. Well no, not compared to the bags of fish needed to win a lot of feeder matches in Holland or Ireland. Here you might be looking to catch 40 or 50 big bream in a few hours of fishing. You have to work on getting each fish to the bank as quickly as possible, to get it in the net, and cast out again for the next one. It's all about managing the number of fish in your swim to make sure you can keep catching as fast as you can, for as long as you can. Bream hauls of 40-50 kilos plus, are possible on many waters in France, but how many of us can fish the feeder fast enough to put that weight in the net in the timescale?

Which brings me back to my initial point, I've caught literally hundreds of good bags of fish in France on the feeder, but I've never really set out to put together a really large haul! I have not worked hard enough at catching fast, consciously getting each fish in as quickly as I could in order to get the feeder back out and catch the next one. This is one aspect of my own fishing ability where I know I am not aggressive enough and therefore need to improve.

So when I had the chance to sit behind Jan for a day, I was ready to ask him a series of questions and learn what I could about putting together big nets of fish on the feeder.

Venue profile
Courcelles is a working gravel pit which links with the Seine. It is famous as a winter haven for huge shoals of river fish which come into the pit to shelter from the winter floods. The pit is massive, and has two distinct ends. One is extremely deep at over 9 metres, the other end shallower at between 5 and 6 metres. This shallower end is where the gravel workings still continue today.

We had originally planned to fish in the deepest water, however, bream are not the only fish that find their way into the pit and the deep water swims were lined with zander anglers. So we went to the shallower end towards the gravel workings. We plumbed the depth carefully and there was a flat bottom, 20 metres out from the bank, with around 5m of water.

The day was overcast and despite an air temperature of 15 degrees, it still felt cool. The wind was blowing fairly hard into our faces. However there was a good chop on the water, so cloudy conditions and wind is usually a good weather recipe for bream.

Tackle for baggin' up on the feeder
I wondered if I'd need stronger tackle than I normally use for bream fishing? Jan was quick to point out some important facts.


Rods: You could be forgiven for thinking that you need a powerful feeder rod for bagging beam... well, you don't. Jan fished at Courcelles with his Four +5 rod, the softest of the three feeder rods in his JVS range. A good bream feeder rod needs to have enough backbone to cast accurately, but more importantly, a soft forgiving action which will give a cushion against striking and playing the fish. This is because a bream has a  soft mouth which can easily be damaged by strong action rods which can tear the hook from its hold. So don't use your carp feeder rod, it's designed for something completely different! What most people don't understand about bagging-up on bream is that it's the reel that does most of the work, not the rod!


Reels: The most common error made by feeder anglers in both France and the UK, is to fish with reels that are too small for the job. A feeder reel should have a large wide spool and plenty of power in the gearing. Jan was using one of his own Jewel 6000 reels, and you can judge from the pictures, the size of reel you need for this sort of fishing. Jan relates the size of the spool to how easy it is to wind in. The larger the spool, the less effort required by the angler to wind line in.

Braid... a MUST for bagging: Some anglers love mono, others braid, but if you want to catch bream as fast as the best Dutch anglers, then you need to use braid. There are a number of advantages to using braid when there's a lot of fish around. One reason is that you can disinguish the difference between a 'liner' and a proper bite. However, the main reason is that you can get fish in much faster, compared to nylon. This is because ordinary mono has stretch, and stretch equals lack of controlich costs time! With braid you have no stretch so can control the rate of retrieve using the the rods soft action, but the ability of the reels large line spool to gather in line at a quicker rate. Jan uses a 7 metre shockleader of 0.30 Tubertini Gorilla line which is attached to JVS 0.08mm Quiver Braid mainline. The knot used to tie on the shockleader is the Albright knot, which he trims the tags right down. This creates a very small knot, which Jan then adds a dab of super-glue to, just to make sure that it passes through the rod rings more smoothly and cannot slip.

Jan's TOP TIPjansheadshot.jpgjansheadshot.jpg
Jan avoids the use of swivels below the feeder explaining “I do not like to use swivels these days for two reasons. One the drop of the bait is more natural without a swivel and secondly, swivels can catch the bottom just as easily as a hook or a lead. On gravel pits like Courcelles, there are lots of rocks on the bottom and I don’t want to have to pull for breaks or loose fish because a swivel has got caught up on one of them.”

Rigs... simple and tangle free
I wondered if Jan would be using semi-bolt rigs with short hooklengths, to make sure the fish hooked themselves. However there was no special or secret rigs involved, bagging up Dutch style relies more on simple classic set up called a Triangle rig. It's where you attach a link swivel in a large loop and pull one side out to make an equal triangle with about 15cm each side. Tie off the triangle and make a series of three or four smaller loops below the triangle to stiffen the rig. Jan finishes his rig off with a longer loop which he cuts. He then ties a crowsfoot knot and attaches his hooklengths to this. Jan was keen to stress is that if you want feeder rigs that don't tangle, the shock leader needs to be made with thicker mono material. The reason is that thick mono is obviously much stiffer, so it stays in place much better than thinner line or braid. It also cuts down line spin drastically when you wind in fast.

Holding big shoals of bream
When you're looking to catch really big nets of fish on most methods, you'd expect to get through a fair amount of groundbait. On the pole you would be feeding a ball or two every cast, over an initial 10 or 12 pre-bait. Well, that will get through at least 5 kilos of dry groundbait without even trying. With the waggler, you'd be catapulting a ball or two every cast, after an initial 15 or 20 ball pre-bait, and you could expect to use more than 5 kilos! One thing is sure, the waggler and pole would need a LOT of groundbait to put a big weight of bream together.

handfulofcrumb0580.jpghandfulofcrumb0580.jpg
 
However, if you are fishing and feeding specifically through a feeder, using this amount of groundbait would simply be impossible. You cannot physically get through many kilos of groundbait when fishing a feeder. So the feeder angler has to rely much more on the amount of bait he can effectively add to the groundbait in the feeder. Only this will give you a chance of pulling and holding the amount of fish you'll need to build a proper big weight.

Having spent a great deal of time with Jan over the last few years, this is one thing I am now starting to recognise about my own feeder fishing. It seems I've been far too negative in the amount of actual bait I have been adding to the feeder. On many occassions I've been happy to add a few maggots and casters to the groundbait mix and plug away all day. But when you think of it, this is no way to build really big weights. How can you hold a large shoal of fish for hours with just a kilo of groundbait and even a litre of maggots, plus a few casters? Clearly you need to use the feeder in a much more positive way.

So let’s take a closer look at the amount of bait Jan will actually use to put a big together.
Groundbait: Jan was using a kilo each of JVS Feeder Bream and Feeder All-Round and surprisingly got through most of it in our short session. After all, 2 kilos dry, is quite a lot of groundbait to put through a feeder! There is one thing Jan is most insistent about when targetting a big weight of bream, the groundbait MUST BE totally inert. This is acheived by mixing all his crumb the night before, making sure that every particle in the mix has fully soaked up water before he uses it. The reason? Well, if you start attracting lots of fish into your swim with your groundbait even slightly active, then what happens is the fish stir up the more active particle as they forage around, causing another feed area OFF the bottom. This generates untold 'liners' which will greatly hamper your attempts to bag-up! Bream groundbait needs to get to the bottom without breaking out the feeder... and STAY there as it breaks up during feeding activity.

Jan's TOP TIPjansheadshot.jpgjansheadshot.jpg
Dead pinkie/maggot: A good alternative to squat. You can freeze the night before or  scold on the morning. Once on the bottom, they will lay on top of the groundbait and stay visible and accessible to the fish.
 
Worms: Jan will use almost a kilo of worms, chopped fairly fine using large worm scissors. A kilo of worms seems like a lot, but once they're all chopped up, it doesn't look quite as large an amount as when you see a kilo of worms writhing in the bag.

Casters: Casters are a great holding bait for big fish so Jan will use a litre. Like chopped worm, caster does not break up the groundbait as the feeder falls. So you can actually get quite a lot of chopped worm and caster through a feeder during a session. That's why this combination of bait is the top choice for Dutch and UK anglers when looking to really bag-up on the feeder.

Maggots: Jan sprinkled a few maggots through the feed, rather than use a lot, so I imagine he got through about ¼ of a litre of maggots.

Squats: Years ago, bream anglers used to use squat to hold big shoals of fish. Jan will use half litre of these small maggots to the keep bream looking around the area. Another advantage of squat is that they tend to stay on top of the groundbait rather than bury themselves through it and into the silt below, like pinkie or maggot. Fish can then find them relatively easy.

You might be thinking that this seems like a lot of bait. But wait and think, how many fish did I have in my swim at Courcelles? Well certainly a lot of fish. There was one point in the sessions when I had possibly a hundred, maybe more. So you take my two kilos of groundbait, the kilo of worms and the casters and maggots and share it out amongst 100 fish. It is not a lot per fish. There will be some fish who got nothing at all. But this is how the feeder works. The fish stay in the HOPE of getting something to eat rather than being able to tuck in over a bed of feed. But for sure if you do not feed enough shoals this size will loose interest and drift off.
Jan's TOP TIP
jansheadshot.jpgjansheadshot.jpg These side boxes are ideal for feeder fishing as they store four or five separate bait boxes, with the various feeds in them, and keep them all dry. I just run my hand over the boxes to add different feeds on the top of my groundbait. I can adjust not only how much I am feeding but the mix of feed stuffs as well, add more maggots, feed less worms and so on.
feederbox0018.jpgfeederbox0018.jpg

 
Adding loose feed to groundbait
 Watch any top feeder angler mixing bait with groundbait during a feeder session and you'll notice that they only add a little loose feed at a time. There are several reasons why they do this:
  1. Fragile baits like worms will dry out and disappear if they spend too long in groundbait
  2. Casters will turn dark and start to float, if mixed in too early
  3. Maggots tend to crawl to the bottom of a groundbait bowl
  4. You need to keep the groundbait at the right consistency to hold in the feeder and then break up on the bottom. By adding bait to the groundbait mix in small amounts, you can constantly control and modify the consistency of your groundbait to make sure that it is holding right in the feeder
  5. You can modify the amount of bait you are feeding at any point in the session, just by adding more or less feed into your mix.
These are important reasons to keep your baits' separate from your groundbait mix, but it does take a little organising.

Jan keeps his groundbait in a separate bowl and adds loose feed on the top as he goes along. Each single bait element is separated, so he has a box of chopped worms, one of casters, maggots and squats etc. Jan then puts a pinch of worms, caster, and sprinkles a few maggots and squats on the top of the mix before filling the feeder.

 How to start feeding
You could be forgiven for thinking that Jan had fish already in his swim when he arrived for the session and that all he had to do was 'winch' them in. Surprisingly, Jan had to wait a good hour and a half for his first bite, which was not a bad thing. Waiting for the fish to arrive allowed Jan time to build up a feed area to help hold the fish once they arrived.

Jan was fishing a good 45 metres out and bagan with quite a large feeder to get his initial carpet laid out. Jan explained that he used these larger feeders, which had much finer mesh cages, to ensure that the feed got down to the bottom intact. We did some tests on what sort of quantity of bait was actually contained in each feeder load and it was the equivalent to a small top-up ball that could be fed with a catapult. Given the size of the feeder, Jan actually put through more groundbait with less loose feed during this initial phase.


There were other anglers fishing around us at Courcelles from the Quiver Club 27. These are local 'feeder-fanatics' who specialise in fishing round the Normandy area and are pretty good at what they do. My young son, 'Little Dave', was also next peg to Jan and was able to 'jump the gun' on him!

It's one of the constraints of doing feature work that you can never start fishing when you want to, as we had to photograph all of Jan’s tackle and feed. All the other anglers around us had been fishing for a good couple of hours, along with Little Dave, before Jan eventually started. They'd already been netting some good fish as well as Dave, but Jan wasn't too worried as he knew there were fish in the area. It was just a case of preparing the feeding area and waiting for them to arrive.


The 'dinner guests' arrive
 After frustrating phase of waiting and watching others catch fish, Jan got his first bite, which turned out to be a decent hybrid of about 750 grams. He followed this with another about 10 minutes later, then another. So far Jan was fishing at a normal pace. He was playing the fish cautiously, taking a bit of time and making sure that he got these early fish into the net, not wishing to 'spook' his new dinner guests!

One important change that was made, was to the size of the feeder. The large one, which had helped build up the swim, was substituted for a smaller version with a heavier lead and no holes. This switch was made for several reasons, which were:
  • Jan started to increase the bait to groundbait ratio in his feed considerably now that the fish had turned up. Pushing much more worm and caster at them would keep them interested and feeding
  • The smaller heavier feeder would also drop faster and straighter, therefore would be quicker once the fish started coming in
  • A feeder without holes rises faster off the bottom, so Jan could retrieve it quicker in the event of a cast without bites, or a missed bite
  • A feeder without holes would also allow more loosefeed to be introduced into the swim, as there was less chance of it dropping through the cage mesh.
Now that Jan was catching his confidence took over. Although he was way behind the other anglers, he knew from experience that if the fish settled down in front of him, he could build a decent weight very quickly.

How does Jan get fish in so fast?
 I've followed Jan over the years, through many situations where he's managed to come up with a few fish in difficult situations. However, I've never seen Jan on loads of fish and it was, quite simply, amazing. When he decided to move up a gear, he fished in a concentrated, fast and efficient way that I'd not seen before. He completely changed his style of playing fish, and in particular, his approach to constantly keeping the feeder going through the swim. I've seen plenty of good anglers get have this 'total' concentration when they are on big bags of fish, but never someone like Jan when he's on bream. To understand how he changed approach we need to break each element of his style down.

 Playing fish
 This was without doubt the biggest change in Jan's approach that I noticed. Normally he plays the fish in a steady, unhurried way, were he pumps and then leans into them with the rod, pulling the fish back a bit then winding down on the reel. But when he wants to get fish in really quick, he uses another technique perfected through years of bagging up on Holland's feeder venues. Here's how to play a fish, baggin' style:
  • Strike and lean into the fish immediately to get it moving towards you.
  • Give the fish a couple of quick pumps as you would normally
  • Once the fish is swimming towards you, stop pumping and keep winding with the rod slightly off to the side.
  • Play the fish directly off the reel handle, not the rod
  • Keep the pressure on the fish and keep winding. So long as you don't give the fish too much time to react, it should keep swimming towards you.
Jan said that there are some Dutch anglers who get fish in even faster than he was doing. They simply turn the fish and get them up on the surface fast, then bounce them in. I queried this with Jan, yes, these were big bream we were talking about! However, Jan was quick to point out that going too fast was actually not as effective as it may seem. “All you need is to loose one or two fish and the seconds you have gained by bouncing fish in are then lost. Playing fish fast is a gamble, you need to balance speed with making sure you get each fish to the net” Jan said. Well, he might not be the fastest rod in Holland, but he was getting these fish in pretty quickly in my eyes. He emphasised that it's more rhythm than speed, which allows you to catch quicker, and in particular, not make any mistakes. By standing up for every cast Jan also made sure that he was accurate as he could be, given the wind.

Netting
 Again, a change in approach when the tempo was increased. The first thing apparent was that Jan stood up to net many of his fish. The rod was also held high above his head as the fish approached the landing net. Raising the rod high above the head is the way Jan believes all big fish on the feeder should be netted. Here is a step-by-step guide to how he achieves it.
  • Wind the fish 'off the reel' straight towards you, as described above.
  • The fish will come close to the surface and you will be able to see it. Once the fish is about 7 or 8 metres from the bank lift the rod and try to keep the fish coming towards you in a steady pull
  • Be ready for the fish to suddenly wake up and start fighting! Winding fish in 'off the reel' takes them by surprise and they don't always get time to fight back, but they are not actually tired. Once you ease off winding, you present the fish with an opportunity to fight back. Even so, try and keep pressuring the fish towards you despite any thrashing it may do.
  • Keep the rod high for netting and be ready to cope with any last minute lunge the fish might make. At this point you should only have the nylon shockleader in play, so there will be some stretch and forgiveness in the line under the rod tip. Remember, there is no point in bringing in a kilo fish from 45 metres in under a minute, if you then loose it under the rod tip!
  • Keep bringing the fish towards you until it's over the net. Jan almost spoons the bream out of the water, like you would with a carp on the pole, he doesn't wait until the fish is lying flat over the surface to net it.
Under tension
One important factor was how to make sure the line never got tangled around the quivertip after landing a fish. The secret is ALWAYS keep the quivertip under tension, whilst unhooking each fish and filling the feeder ready for the next cast. Jan does this in one of two ways:

Method 1: Rod across the seatbox. Once he's got a fish in the net, he puts the rod behind him on his seatbox, at an angle, resting the rod on the rest. The rod butt is then sat on as he unhooks each fish and while the tip is kept under constant tension.

Method 2: Jan has an attachment he sometimes uses, a sort of rod butt holder, which which fits on the front leg of his seat box. This allows him to put the rod butt in whilst unhooking each fish. Unfortunately, he'd left this in Holland so Jan was on method 1 for this session!

The point was clear though. Attention to these various details greatly improves your chances of utilising every minute of your time, which means more fish in the net come the weigh-in.

Coping with lots of fish in the swim
 This seemed to me to be the most complicated element to bagging up with a feeder. Many times I've started catching well, only to find fish become harder to catch after a period. I'm sure I am not alone in this. The fishing is going well with fish coming steadily, but then things start to go slightly wrong. You start missing the odd bite. The fish, which had previously all been lip-hooked, are now swallowing the bait and as a consequence are taking longer to unhook. You're getting more liners... All sounds familiar? Although the tip keeps going round, you're actually putting less fish in your net.

These problems are sure signs that you've got lots of fish in the swim and are having trouble managing the situation, which Jan agrees is one of the hardest things to do when feeder fishing. In fact, he went through exactly this situation at Courcelles and explained what happened.“I think what pulls fish into your swim are other fish, not  necessarily what's in the feeder. Think about that for a moment. I was getting no bites, no signs, because they were no fish in front of me. Then one or two fish found my feed and settled on it. Gradually, more fish moved in, drawn by the sight and sound of others feeding. I had a good hour’s fishing where I caught well. Every cast I'd had a bite and a fish, virtually as soon as the feeder hit the bottom. But as time moved on, more and more fish entered the area until my swim was packed with them. This could pose me some problems”

"You only have to understand the situation to realise how difficult it can be to manage. Remember the feeder principle, it is not the feed itself that holds fish in your swim, it's the PROMISE of it that keeps them there. So when you get lots of fish in your swim, they change how they feed. Instead of feeding calmly, they start to snatch at baits. This leads to sharper bites, which you may miss if the fish feel the tip too early. Those you hit are likely to have gulped the bait down deep and swam off. When you have fish feeding normally, liners too, are rarely a problem. But get too many fish chasing a bait and you'll get as many liners as proper bites... so you need to tell the difference."

"The problems faced with these situations mean that especially on liners and missed bites you run the risk of dragging the feeder into other feeding fish, which makes them bolt off, taking the rest of the shoal with them! Another consequence of too many fish around is that they attract predators, which also spooks them."
Jan then talked me through how to manage this situation.
  • Don't get frustrated or you will start making mistakes. Stay calm and keep doing the basic things right. Casting accurately and concentrating on the tip
  • Start varying the amount of feed in your mix. Jan fed a couple of feeders with just groundbait in it, no loosefeed, to try to settle the fish down. You can also try the reverse, go for more feed or swap to a bigger feeder
  • Make sure that everything stays on the bottom. If you are going to settle the fish on the bottom, make sure your mix is still the correct consistency. Cage feeders should be avoided at all costs in this sort of situation because some feed will always get out of them
  • If liners become too much of a problem, sit on your hands and only pick-up if the rod gets pulled off the rest!
  • Use big hookbaits which will not get damaged if a fish picks it up and drops it
  • Keep feeding! At all costs you must keep feed going into your swim. If you leave it for even 15 minutes to go for a walk the fish will quickly melt away. And once they've gone it can take a long time to get them back again. Big shoals simply will not wait around if you stop feeding.

CONCLUSIONS:

Time and Motion
 Having watched Jan throughout his session I knew he'd put together a decent net of fish. He'd managed to fish properly for about five hours, in between our photos and discussions. In that time Jan had put netted 37 bream, plus a couple of big hybrids. The bream averaged a little over the kilo, say 1,200kg. This gave him an approximate weight of around 45 kilos!


Now we can sit and do some basic calculations using the 37 fish over 5 hours. This meant Jan caught a fish every 8 minutes during our session. This is good going, but you don't get the impression of Jan catching really fast, which is what I really wanted to do. However, the session wasn't as straightforward as that as Jan hadn't caught fish steadily throughout his 5 hours beacuse of the disruptions. What he effectively went through were THREE distinct phases, which were as follows:

5 hours = 300 minutes.

Phase 1: Waiting
 Jan waited 90 minutes for his first bite. In this period he added NO fish to his total.
So Jan’s catch speed over 90 minutes was: 0 fish per minute!

 Phase 2: Bagging Mode
 Jan had a 'golden' hour when he got his swim really going. There were not too many fish present but those that were had settled over his initial bed of feed. In this 60 minute spell Jan made the most of the situation. He fished fast and put half of his net together. Including the hybrids, Jan caught about 20 fish in this spell fishing at 45 metres, and on the feeder that IS fast.
Catch speed over 60 minutes was 20 fish: 3 minutes per fish

Phase 3: Swim Management
 As I explained earlier, as more and more fish moved into Jan’s swim, his catch rate slowed and the fishing became more difficult to catch. But holding his nerve, he continued to pick-up fish for the rest of the session, putting another 19 bream into his net. By carefully managing his feed, using closed feeders and keeping everything tight on the bottom, Jan fished through the increased liners without losing his cool and spooking the shoal. It is ironic that as more fish moved in, his catch rate actually decreased, but this is often the way with bream fishing. Even Jan mis-read a few of the liners and I could see him getting annoyed with himself when he did. But he kept casting accurately and working away. When you look at his catch rate, he still was netting a fish every 8 minutes.... still pretty fast!
Catch speed over 150 minutes was 19 fish: 8 minutes per fish


During the day there were a number of good nets taken. Little Dave had put together nearly 40 kilos of bream, but he had caught steadily over a longer period of time. There were several 30 kilo plus nets from the other French anglers present. But they had all started well before Jan, yet despite starting late and waiting a long time for his first bite, he'd actually put together the biggest net that day. It is only when you break his catch rate down that you realise just how fast he went, in order to make up the deficit. As Jan explained, if you are behind in a fishing situation you can still catch up, provided you have the experience to make the most of your chances when they arrive. Having watched Jan plunder his swim when the fish arrived, I can assure you, tthat he was not just fast, but smooth, he made no mistakes, kept feeding accurately, kept everything tangle-free and he got fish in the fastest I’ve ever seen... a complete feeder Masterclass!

Finally, here are some of the lessons and main points learnt from watching Jan:

  • Make sure your groundbait is as inert (inactive) as possible
  • Use a variety of feeders, but make sure that when the fish are there, you use closed or taped up feeders to keep the bait down
  • You need braid to get fish in fast
  • Use a proper size reel with a decent sized spool for this type of work
  • Keep the feed going in all the time when sitting on big shoals of bream
  • Use plenty of loose feed in the feeder, big shoals need plenty of bits to encourage them to stay
  • Stay calm, when you start getting liners resist the temptation to keep striking and adding more and more feed into your swim
  • Focus on the basics, cast accurately and keep your actions smooth
  • Think about keeping your rod under tension all the time when unhooking fish, it will save you time because your tip will never get tangled up
  • Take a slamo disgorger for deep hooked fish
  • Finally, make the most of a shoal of fish when they arrive! This was where Jan really showed his class. How many of us would have fished nice and steadily once the fish turned up, assuming that things would stay the same. But, as Jan showed, a feeder swim can often turn complicated once many fish move in. He knew this and capitalised on the fish, when conditions were perfect. Had his 'golden' hour produced the same rate as the last session, ie 8 minutes a fish, then Jan would of only taken 7.5 fish, giving him a final count of 26-27 fish. That meant a total weight of approximately 33kgs, nice steady fishing, but probably not enough to win many bream matches! A margin of 11 kilos between the two approaches is testiment to the effectiveness of Jan's approach.

 

 

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