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Competition Secrets - A film by Gábor Döme
Part 6 - Bream fishing with fish meal groundbait
When we hear that someone is preparing for bream fishing, usually a sweet,
cinnamon-based groundbait comes to mind for many anglers as one of the best possible groundbaits.
I must confess I used to think this too, until I experienced for myself that
how effectively you can fish for bream with fish meal-based groundbaits.And not just small bream.
For years now, during feeder carp fishing, I have been catching large bream,
even several pound capital ones, with fish meal groundbait and pellet bait.
But I thought it was just coincidence and I never dreamed of purposefully
fish for bream with fish meal groundbait, even say at fishing competitions. Although it is certainly worth it!
The best example was the 2012 Feeder World Championship in Belgium,
where the Hungarian team, which I was part of, reached a fantastic second place.
Moreover, this was crowned by Attila Erdei's world champion title.
It might have been evident from the race reports that already then and there clearly a very strong,
very aggressive fish meal-based groundbait brought the team this coveted success.
The interesting thing is that on the competition track, with this groundbait, large, capital,
several pound bream, crucian and carp could be caught.Why was this interesting?
Because on the competition track, the rowing track where the competition was held, lived many small sized roach, seabream, small bream
and other annoying fish, which picked up the bait before the coveted large bream.
However, with this fish groundbait they could be screened and sorted to such a degree
that if the rod tip bent, if we had a bite, it was almost certainly a large fish.
After the World Championship, when I returned home, I tried it out several times
in Hungary, in Hungarian conditions, on stillwaters and also on rivers. The effect was astonishing.
It worked perfectly here as well, but obviously it must be clear
that it is only worth trying on waters where there are large bream.
What do I mean by large bream? The fish weight must at least reach or exceed half a kilo (1.1 pounds).
If the average weight of the fish is smaller, or there are rarely any larger bream in the water,
then it is pointless to try fish groundbaits, because we can only catch a few carp and bream with it.
However, where the fish weight exceeds this, and there are many annoying small fish,
then with this fish meal groundbait we can fantastically sort and dramatically increase the fish weight of the catch.
The chosen location, where I would like to show this fish meal bream angling, is one of the country's most famous waters, the Maconka water reservoir.
This water became famous for its large, capital sized carp
but it also has a very diverse and colourful fish fauna.
For 10 years, we have been organizing very prestigious, quality fishing competitions here, one of which is
the Haldorado - Successful-Angler International Feeder Cup.
It is held for the 11th time this year, this is a teams and also a singles fishing competition.
Because of the strong competition, so far in the singles competition, I could never stand on the podium,
in 2012 however, I managed to win it!
Those, who have followed the episodes of competition secrets, may recall
that it was said many times, that how close the forefront was, how little did it depend on
that I could reach either first, second or third place.
Believe it or not, in this competition the first 7 competitors collected the same amount of points, a total of 3, under the two rounds.
In this case, those who are familiar with competitions well know that, only the caught fish weight decides.
That's when you can be 7th and can be the first too.
I managed to win this, because in the second round I managed to catch an outstanding, nearly 44 pound bream haul,
and by gaining a significant weight advantage, I could win the competition with the most caught fish weight.
I'm particularly proud of this, because I managed to compete with and overtake people,
who were purposefully carp angling in these waters.
Under the 5 hour long race they could not catch as many carp as I did bream.
So, in addition to that this water is famous for its abundance of capital carp,
under competing conditions, it is well worth fishing for bream,
as we can gain an outstanding haul, an outstanding catch.
One of the secrets to my success was that in the competition I fished for bream an average of 40 meters further than everyone else.
Most fished for bream 20 and 30 meters away.
The interesting and unique thing about today's fishing is that I'm going to fish for bream even further, approximately 60 meters away.
In itself this is no big deal for those who fish with feeder rods,
but if I add that I want to do this with an end gear,
which is fully in line with international regulations, then it's more interesting.
For those who yet to participate in a competition, which is organized according to international rules,
I will briefly summarize the most important criteria of these.
The end gear can only be such on which the feeder must infinitely slide.
So it can't be stopped. The hooklength's minimum length must be 50 cm.
The feeder can't be in-line that is the main line can't go through it,
like in the case of the traditional ribbed feeder baskets, or method feeders.
Their use is prohibited. So every feeder, which can be thrown far
easily, accurately to a long distance, is unfortunately prohibited.
Therefore, with end gears in accordance with the international regulations, usually it is very
hard to throw further than 40 meters, but there is a solution.
We saw a good example, on the already mentioned World Championship held in Belgium, from the world champion Dutch team.
They used a special lead end feeder, with which I'm not exaggerating they could easily fish from a 60-80 meter distance.
For that matter, this is why it is worthwhile, if it's possible, to participate in fishing competitions
where there are professionals and significantly more skilled anglers, because from them we can see and learn under a short time
such an amount of information and tricks for which hours, days, weeks spent on the bank would be too little.
In the meantime, I tried out this end gear and also this feeder and it works very effectively.
With its help, we can fish further than anyone, very accurately
and what is important that in the face of changing weather conditions,
so if a pesky, unexpected wind starts to blow, even then you can throw your end gear exactly to the right place!
In the meantime, we made an improved Haldorado version of this, which is called Long Cast Round.
It looks like this.It is made in 25 and 35 gramme sizes.
Thanks to the end weight, it flies very stable straight smooth and most importantly to a great distance.
After arriving and setting up the angling position, I've done 10 initial throws with this feeder size,
there's no need for a bigger feeder, or a different feeder rod, I've done the initial
throws with the same end gear that I'm going to use for fishing later.
We don't need much groundbait, because the water is cold, it is autumn;
the feeding of the fish is not as intense as say in summer in warmer water.
Well then, let's start and look at how all this works in practice.
The first bream has arrived. It's probably not the capital specimen of the lake, but they are here.
Oh, here's another one.
It is very unpleasant and cold, no wonder, it's already late autumn, the fish feed very carefully,
yet I barely put down the rod and there's a bite.
I always start my watch, to know the amount of time it takes the fish to arrive,
well if I'm right 52-53 seconds have passed since the throw in and here's the next bream.
Oh, it's a nice one.
Oh, it's a beautiful fish.
Here's the fish.
The air temperature can't be higher than 5 degrees Celsius; the water may still be around 10 degrees Celsius,
serious, tough conditions.Oh, but the bream are more beautiful.
You are also beautiful!
Here's another beauty.
And here's the bite.
This will be my 14th fish. I know this so precisely, because I can control not only the
amount of time needed for a bite, but also the rate of catching the fish.
For this I use a fish counter, which is now at 13. However, after I catch this, I put it in a bag,
click the counter that will increase by one, so this is the 14th fish, which is very important in competing circumstances
because in proportion to the time elapsed, we can estimate how much fish
can we catch say under a 5-hour-long competition time.
And I also know approximately how much fish the neighbours caught and I can compare my own results to it,
depending on this, if we have to, we can change the built up strategy, the tactics.
It's time to talk about what kind of groundbaits, what kind of delicacies go into the feeder.
Two bowls are beside me with the same ingredients, but the proportions
in which I mixed them are completely different. In this bowl is a greenish-brown coloured mix,
while in the one behind it is a brownish, brownish-green coloured mix.
This mix is a mix of 1 kg Haldorado Top Method Feeder Maximum Green and half a kilo Big Bream,
so it has a definitely dominant fishy character.
While the other mix contains 1 kg Haldorado Big Bream and half a kilo Top Method Feeder Maximum Green groundbait.
Here the sweet, spicy character is dominant.
To both mixes I added half a bottle Haldorado Big Bream liquid flavour.
Why are 2 different mixes needed for bream fishing?
The Maconka experience clearly shows that sweet groundbait
with minimal fish meal content can lure good bream, or a large fish weight to one pile.
However, when there are a lot together, more and more fish comes to the feeding, unfortunately the fish start to get smaller.
The initially pretty large fish start getting smaller and smaller. We go down to palm size or smaller.
But at this point, we can reverse the process, if we start to fish with a fish meal groundbait.
We can nicely select and sort out the larger, bigger size fish from the big fish pile.
By combining these two different groundbaits, sometimes putting one, sometimes the other in the feeder,
we can catch bigger and bigger size bream very nicely.
It is important that this type of fishing, which, as I said, works perfectly under competing conditions,
is also very effective in regular fishing.
So when someone gets tired of catching more and more smaller and smaller bream,
then with this technique, with this kind of tactic we can nicely select the larger bream.
This type of bream fishing is not as spectacular, not as quick as when we want to catch bream of all sizes at all cost,
here it is much more important to catch the large ones.
While astoundingly the final weight might be much better than when we fish for all sizes.
While the large ones are there, as it could be seen after the start of the watch, sometimes
it pulls within 1 minute. We can sort them out very nicely.
The other important technique that requires very serious practice, but obviously learnable,
is when we have a feeding centre, when we always try to throw to the same spot,
then if we want to catch large fish, we shouldn't throw to the middle of the feeding, rather to the left, or right side of it.
Of course this doesn't mean that we have to throw it several meters from the feeding spot, or from the feeding epicentre,
because with it we would achieve the opposite effect by pulling the fish apart.
We should only try to fish 1-1 meter away from the feeding's edge.
We will have bites much sooner and the size will also be significantly bigger.
Besides using the right mixes, live bait has a very important role as well.
Before every throw in I put on some live bait, like maggot,
caster, some earthy mosquito and freshly chopped worm.
Large bream like them very much.
And they get a truly rich live bait and calorie bomb with each feeder.
For the hook, I also choose from the said live baits. First, the mosquito larvae, it's the bream's favourite.
I combine this with worm, maggot, caster, or I put on a large bunch in itself.
Also it is very interesting that for the last few fish I tried floating maggots,
and it got nibbles very quickly.
The water is cold, clearly cold; one would think that in these conditions all the fish are on the deck.
The previous few fish I caught, clearly showed that the 50 cm hooklength,
which rises its full length thanks to the one floating maggot, with a few mosquito larvae,
results in bites much earlier than the bottom bait. And what is astounding, sokkal elõbb kapást eredményez, sokkal elõbb kapást ad, mint a fenéken fekvõ csali. És ami mindemellett meghökkentõ,
is that the fish that catches the bait midwater are perhaps even larger than the fish feeding on the deck.
So in any kind of weather, any season, it's always recommended to have floating maggots with us.
I will put this freshly chopped worm-rich groundbait into the feeder.
This is how a really rich, filled feeder looks like.
Camera placed on Gábor
The fish size is growing beautifully.I love these bronze, dark coloured bream.
The bigger, the larger the bream, the darker its colour is usually.
And all this in late autumn with fish groundbait.
For those who were not following the "Competition secrets" film series up till now,
it must be astounding that what keeps this 50 cm long hooklength from tangling on the shockleader
and why am I not pulling out my end gear in a big pile, a big bundle.
I could achieve this by using a braided shockleader line every time,
which is essential for long throws, and by tying it double I get an end eye.
And this end eye, which I fixed with two knots so that the hooklength can't get in it, just to be safe,
this end eye, this double tied line functions as a tangling preventer.
This prevents the hooklength's folding and the thrown end gear reaches the deck without tangling.
But I have already proven that this kind of end gear is tangle free in a way more extreme situation,
those who saw part one of "Competition secrets" certainly remember that a 125 cm long hooklength can also
be used tangle free with this type of end gear.
The hooklength's girth is a 14 Haldorado Visitor, while the hook is also a size 14, 1310N type Gamakatsu hook.
Even with the best end gear, we can't always throw accurately to such a distance; we are talking about 60 meters,
especially when the weather conditions are constantly changing.
The wind gets stronger then weaker, then changes direction, definitely a rigid, but flexible rod is required.
I recommend a 3 m 90 cm long rod for this with heavy / medium heavy characteristics.
I use the 3 m 90 cm version of the Royal Carp Feeder, which is perfect for this situation as well.
Of course, even the best rod is worthless without the proper reel.
The one I hold in my hand is the 2013 Spro model, the Team Feeder reel line that will be available in three different versions.
It is my great pride that I could participate in giving this reel its final form.
I had a say in ongoing tests, trials and the final design.
Thanks to the line clips, the end gear always flies in the same distance
and then line lowering has a very important role.
By pushing the rod's tip underwater, thanks to the waves, the line can be lowered in no time.
The tip of the rod put on the rod rest is especially spectacular, as it's only a few centimetres away from the water surface,
or depending on the waves sometimes it reaches it.
This is necessary because the rod isn't placed in a traditional manner either,
meanwhile this was all the time needed for a bite, so it's not our classic,
roughly placed feeder rod fishing, when the bite is also very aggressive,
very sturdy, sounding the baitrunner, well this is not the case here.
Here the bites are very gentle, very cautious, one-two, maximum three centimetre pulls,
or straightening back of the rod tip signal it to me.
It's cold, the fish feed cautiously, obviously, the bites are in accordance with this,
however, with this rod placing method, when the rod tip almost touches the water,
and the water as an excellent background shows every tiny movement of the rod tip, even these cautious bites are perfectly noticeable.
We can see that the sorting worked really well, we managed to catch beautiful, large bream during the day.
A quick photo and I'm releasing them back.
Today's fishing is eloquent proof that it is worthwhile to try out daring things, even in bream fishing.