Scaling down

Colour options

Plenty of anglers believe they can have a baiting attack in mind and stick with it throughout the day. Gary half subscribes to that idea but makes lots of tweaks to what he uses on the feeder during the session.

“Micro pellets and groundbait are the two baits I rely on, but I use a whole range of different colour combinations. I’ll have light brown, red and yellow micros and a dark groundbait to cover all bases.

“It is the same principle with my hookbaits. Most of the bream waters I visit are now fished in a commercial manner and this means that natural baits such as maggots and worms aren’t as effective because the fish rarely see them.

“So I use mini boilies, wafters and drilled pellets and have a handful of 25 to 30 different colours and shapes.

“It is a simple matter of trying different combinations throughout the day. If bites dry up, switch to something different to fool the fish. With four types of loosefeed to put on the feeder and that many hookbait options, you have hundreds of different combinations to try out.”

There are two camps on the rig front when it comes to bream fishing – those that favour an old- school mentality with a cage feeder and the modern approach that relies on the Method or Hybrid. Gary falls firmly into the latter group. He is convinced that the tight pile of bait leads to more fish taking the hookbait.

This style of fishing is usually undertaken with strong terminal tackle due to concerns that the 4in hooklength will be put under a lot of pressure during the fight. While this may be true when fishing for carp or other hard- fighting species, it isn’t the case when targeting bream in winter.

“They are a species that don’t fight particularly hard in cold water and this enables you to use lighter hooklengths to better disguise the trap.

“I’ll usually go with 0.14mm ( 5lb) but I have no issue dropping down to 0.12mm ( 3.8lb) if the going gets tough. They don’t take off at pace so the chances of being broken are minimal.”

A size 16 Guru QM1 hook is used at the business end, with 6lb mainline on the reel to deal with the rigours of casting loaded feeders.