Huge Bream From Wasings Shalford Lake

Big fish angler Phil Chun recently fished a three day session on the Wasing fishing syndicates Shalford Lake, not for carp, but the resident big bream. The water is acknowledge by many of the very experienced local anglers as being a tough water. Phil baited with a mixture of corn, pellets, broken UFO boilies and pigeon mix. He decided not to use a spod to get the bait out some 80-90 yards because of the noise created, he chose instead to us a bait boat, not only to put the feed in the right area but also his size 10 long shank extractor hook baited with a UFO pop up boilie.

It wasn't the best weather to target big fish very clear and cold nights with mist, Early in the afternoon of the first day Phil hooked and lost a good fish which he thought was probably a carp. All through the first night and the following day Phil kept the swim topped up with fresh feed. All the through Monday night he waited patiently for the alarm to warn him of a fish getting interested in one of his baits. Just at dawn his left hand alarm sounded three bleeps over a minute period, then the bobbin slowly crawled towards the butt ring. The answering strike tightened the 10 lb bs line and put a nice curve in his 1lb 12 ounce tc rod. After what can be best described as a sluggish scrap Phil was able to net a good size bream. On seeing the fish laying in the folds of his net he realised he had caught a rather special fish. Zeroing weight bag and scales the fish turned the scale pointer to 15-6-0 a new lake record and a personal best. It was only a few weeks ago that Phil set the new lake record with a bream of 14-8-0 See picture