night fishing 24-25/4/09

[asp383]

went night fishing last night with lilman.
we went to our local lakes making a quick detour to the tackle shop.
as well as some glowsticks, i also got a korum method feeder & bait bands (for the pellets).
we were set up by about 7.30, i had 1 rod with open cage feeder & the other with the method feeder. lilman was set up with maggott feeder, but decided not to borrow my other rod.
i was using my van den eynde goundbait mix with carp pellet on hair rig with both rods, lilman stuck to purely maggott.
after a while i had my 1st run, soon a lovely bream was in the net, although i didn't do any individual weighing, i could see it was much bigger than my previous pb. slow, but sure, the fish kept comming. i had the bite alarms on & had the reels on free spool to give me time to get to the rod, which resulted in a fish each time.
lilman was missing his bites, i offered top lend him an open feeder so he could go the same way as me, but he declined & devided to call it a night about 11ish.
i was settled in my reclining chair under my brolly, eventually wrapping up in my sleeping bag & each time i was just starting to nod off, bleep bleep bleep, another run & another fish.
eventually daylight broke, which resulted in another 3 fish, on the last 2, i'd just landed 1 & got it in the keep net, when the other rod went, 1 more bait up for both & after about 1/2 hour, the heavens opened, so woke lilman up after about an hour of no bites & we started packing up about 7ish.
i hadn't even been counting the fish as i caught them, but was pleasantly suprised when my keep net revealed 15 fish (13 bream & 2 tench) to a respecable total of 34lbs,
lilman did the honours with the camera & i did my best to look like a glamerous model, but failed miserably, guess hardly any sleep does that ... just look at the bags under my eyes lol.
was so shattered, when packing up, i just rolled the tents up (no bivvies yet, will see how much night fishing we dobefore getting 1) & put them in a bin bag & chucked in car, which i still have to empty.

here's my catches...

















we had to detour to the shop to get bacon & bits so when we got back to mine, mrs asp's mum did us a lovely fry up (she stayed the night to keep mrs asp company). after a shower, i retired to bed for a few hours.

[fishypaul]

nice catch there mate,well done

[Banana Steve]

Nice one

[asp383]

thanks guys, certainly a pb bream in 1 of those pics lol.

[pingu]

glad the session was a success, nice one

dave

[HyperRod]

Ace Catches, Well Done Asp!

:)

Rob.

[asp383]

cheers dave & rob.
just out of interest, hwat is the difference between silver & bronze bream?

[Banana Steve]

A silver Bream is actually a species on its own, but what we call silver bream are actually Skimmer bream they are Juvenile Bronze Bream.


I found this article on the web
Angling: Common and silver bream are tough to tell apart
TWICE this season I have had excited anglers by reporting that they had caught big silver bream – big by that species standards anyway.
When I had asked them about the criteria that they had used in the identification, they both stumbled a bit and neither could prove definitely that their fish were not common bream.

I am sure that most anglers realise that the common bream – Abramis brama – is an entirely different species from the silver bream – Blicca bjoerkna – and the problem in telling them apart arises because young common bream are usually a silver colour. Although, they later take on the distinctive olive/brown (sometimes almost black) appearance that we expect.

The genuine silver bream never reaches the same size as its 'common cousin', so when an angler catches a smallish, silver or pale bream he has to be able to tell what species it is because, apart from personal interest and satisfaction, specimen fish claims depend upon a positive and witnessed identification.

It is not enough to say that the eye of the common bream is comparatively smaller or the head comparatively larger, which they are.

Identification must be more precise than that and can only be established by scale and fin ray counts, and even this method can prove inconclusive.

The anal fin of the common bream contains between 23 and 29 branched rays, whilst that of the silver bream has 21 to 23 rays. Normally, therefore, the anal fin of the common variety is longer but the number of rays is not always a positive identification because if there are 23 it could be a fish of either species.

A further identification is the number of scales between the dorsal fin and the lateral line. The common bream has between 11 and 15 whilst the silver has eight to 11, but again there is that slight overlap on 11, that could give rise to considerable doubt about the true identity of a fish.

Perhaps the best method of establishing what species of fish you have caught is to count the number of scales along the whole length of the lateral line. The common bream has between 50 and 60, whereas the silver only has between 44 and 48.

If an angler subjects his fish to a close and detailed examination using these three methods, he ought to be able to be fairly sure of its species.

Personally, I do not think I could be bothered to muck the poor old fish about that much whilst I did my arithmetic.

Actually, there is no bankside scrutiny that can prove what the fish is for sure. Only a post mortem to examine the pharyngeal teeth will do it, which does not do the fish one scrap of good!

Incidentally, no hybrids involving silver bream have ever been recorded from British waters

Bronze bream


Silver Bream




Hopefully this helps

Regards, Steve

[asp383]

thanks steve,
will be usefull for future reference. possible i may have had a bronze or 2 then? a couple seem rather dark.
opinions please ... never know, it may be worth another 1.5 points for the species hunt lol