THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Some individuals can also have several broad darker bars along their flanks. There may even be hints
of blue or gold patterning here and there too, which, as with the darker bars and depth of dark
colouration generally, in some fish can be quite variable, though the tendency is that most individuals
coming from a particular location will all be similarly marked.
Black bream are also a nest building species with some particularly interesting gender habits. Most
members of the sea bream family sparidae are thought to be hermaphrodites; that is animals born with
both sets of sex organs. Protandrous hermaphrodites mature as males, some of which later change to
females, whereas protogynous hermaphrodites do things the other way around.
Whilst not conclusive, research suggests that black bream mature as females, some of the larger of
which, according to need, later become males displaying the characteristic humped shoulder and
iridescent blue band between the eyes.
Black bream and Sussex were synonymous when I first read about angling for the species. The
Kingmere rocks in particular. All those late spring to early summer stories of huge catches of fish to six
pounds and more, plus a dipping of the toe into the world of light tackle fishing allowing fish to show
what they're made of instead of subduing them with overwhelmingly heavy gear was particularly
inspiring reading back then.
Ironically, more than forty years would elapse before I would catch my first Sussex black bream on a
run out from Chichester eastwards along the coast towards Selsey aboard Graeme Pullen's Wilson Flyer.
There we took quite a few very nice specimens on ultra light fixed spool outfits, finally fulfilling the
dreams of all those years ago.
That of course wasn't my first black bream encounter. There have been many over the years, and from
a whole string of venues, which in a way have mirrored the species expansion northwards, marking
them out as another of those rare fish to have enjoyed some measure of success in the face of all the ills
fish population numbers more generally have suffered over recent times.
Ironically, despite the increasing expansion, the
species has still suffered numerically along the south
coast where they once prospered. Also in terms of its
breeding grounds which are being destroyed
commercially, and last but not least, a decrease in
their average size due to increased commercial
interest in the species.
The first black bream I ever saw was on a planned
bream fishing trip, but not one targeting black bream.
As will become clear in the red bream account, I have
spent a lot of time dropping small mackerel strips on
2/0 hooks to short droppers right into the thick of the
Eddystone and its adjacent reefs aboard boats fishing
out from Looe in Cornwall.
Red bream were far and away the most common
species there back then, to the point that I was actually
surprised one day when a couple of nice sized blacks
also made the frame.
Dawn Williams, Pwllheli Black Bream
It wasn't me that caught them unfortunately. I was
still a black bream virgin at that stage. But
determined that wasn't going to remain the case, by
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