King’s Weir on the River Lea holds big fish of all species, with the largest captures are normally associated with chub and barbel. However Stuart Payne had the shock of his life when he landed a colossal bream of 15lb 4oz, one of, if not the biggest bream ever caught from a UK river.
Stuart was using maggot feeder tactics and apart from a few taps and an odd smaller fish the action was painfully slow. The river had been quite busy leading upto his session, so the extra pressure and less than ideal conditions were proving tough.
As the session was nearing its conclusion, Stuart decided to change his tactics, opting for a bigger maggot hookbait and a larger feed to try to get some bait into the swim and invoke a response from anything willing to feed.
“I’d caught nothing all day, so I decided to change tactics and cast into some slack water down from the weir,” he said.
"There had been very little activity in the main flow where I expected the fish to be in the bright conditions, so I tried the complete opposite and immediately received a few signs of life."
“After receiving a few taps, I told my friend it was either a small fish or a big bream, so I struck and was immediately into a heavy fish."
"The fish didn't do much and came in like a sack of potatoes, but with the flow and how wide the fish was, I was quite glad it remained calm or I might have lost it."
"It was a massive bream. We weighed the fish, and unbelievably, the scales read 15lb 4oz, a huge fish that was the last thing I ever expected to catch that day," he added.
IF YOU ENJOY TARGETING BIG BREAM, THIS EXPERT ARTICLE IS WELL WORTH A READ!
