I'm still breaming.....

Jon Savage aside, I'm still breaming. This penned after yesterday's Wembley shenanigans.  Far away from the already madding crowds I would set out my stall for some rod bending action down on the Next Nearest on the firm boards of the Royal Box. The last few spots of rain dried on the windscreen as I  unloaded the pantenchnicon, leaving all but the waggler rod inside. I had a round 4 hours to see what magic the golden grains could conjure up. You know the score, 13 foot Drennan,. 3.2lb bs Floatfish straight though to a B560 #14. A nominally 5 AAA insert peacock waggler, bulked with 4AAA and  3  number 4 down, not spread out  and 2 number 6  anchors 4 inches over depth. Seven foot of depth, though some weed  coming up which occasionally saw the shots hung up  a bit.

Roach at first, as the Black Bream laced with corn, hemp and 6mm krill pellets settled on the bed and seeped out it's sweet attractants.  Then the float lifted and sank away as this hybrid made off. I'd seen the length but knew it wasn't a big daddy roach as no vivid red about the fins in the water

A bumped fish with a sheet of bubbles and I knew they'd knocked the roach off the feed. And so it proved as a bream put the desired bend in the rod. Faint spawning tubercles about it as well.

The next fish to the party was different gravy, and though it didn't make off in a knuckle rapping  frenzy it did try to get in the pads to my right and the reeds to my left (which bream don't really) and then disaster struck. I'd rescued an old tip section for my bust landing net but my hastily applied glue gun glue succumbed. I had to fish about with the handle to retrieve the net head then reach for the 42 inch net which the tench gratefully dived into as it wasn't the stink net....a glorious green goddess of a tench.

 

There is nothing as satisfying as sweeping the rod back to meet  a firm resistance and having to flick the anti reverse off, and though the bream weren't as feisty as that tench they did indeed bend the rod  quite nicely. Once beat they do flop over on their big broad flank but even that looks good as they are drawn to the net, a shot I must capture. I'd switched to dendro and corn cocktail now and it seemed to be very effective.

I put up with the two bream above snotting up my 42 inch net before putting the stink net head on the shorter 1.8 mete handle. And proceeded to fill the putrid mesh with even more snot. All in a good cause.  I think this worm muncher was still just a bout a skimmer. Freshly minted too.

Took ages to get  a shot of this black tailed skimmer (not the small bream above) though it is heavily cropped.

 

This decent hybrid put up a very determined struggle (as they seem to do) and quite different to the first hybrid of the afternoon. Two more for  https://jorvikangler.blogspot.com  mutant  Norfolk rogue's gallery.

By now the bream were really on it and if I hadn't had a get home and light the barbie curfew I can't begin to  imagine how many I'd have had  if I had stayed on until I ran out of bait. No mistaking these for skimmers (or dragonflies). And I made it to the barbie lighting duties  by the skin of a roach shredded golden grain.