Silver Bream, Willow Farm

The 2011 bloggers challenge includes a few species that are out of my comfort zone, in other words I have never seriously fished for them. I like to fish waters that hold big fish but that is probably being a bit short sighted as fun can be had fishing for smaller species and tonight was one of those evenings that proved my point.
A couple of weeks ago I was sorting through the photos on the computer and deleting the rubbish ones when I came across a photo of my daughter, Maisie with a fish she had caught on a day out with her Daddy. It looked like a Silver Bream.

Big eye, Anal fin, silvery scales etc, had I stumbled across some possible points close to home?  Tonight I decided to give it a try.
When I arrived at the puddle I had a quick chat with the two old boys already fishing and one of them had a decent Bream in the net, I explained what I was after and he pulled out his keepnet to show me what he had caught. To me it looked like several Silver Bream, including one of over a pound! plus a few very small Crucians and a Goldfish! This got me excited and keen to get fishing.
I baited up my swim with maggots before I set up to give the fish some time to find the bait. Having fished this lake previously with Maisie I knew that it was full of stunted Roach so I thought that if I loaded the shot low down then the maggots would get through to the pond bed and that would give me the chance to pick off the silvers. It worked! First cast a gudgeon, next eight fish were Bream.

The biggest weighed in at 7oz and not being an expert I have included several photos in hope that Jeff (silver Bream) Hatt can verify that they are true Siver Bream. Having studied his ramblings closely I certainly think they are.

I have included this photo so that regular readers can see I now have a new butch fishing Transit van and am not turning up at the waterside in my hairdresser's Mazda!