THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

As they flow, for a variety of reasons, debris in the form of
stones, boulders, and even soil from the surrounding valley
slopes falls onto and become consolidated into the glacier,
which then carries the material along until ultimately it melts,
leaving ridges or flat planes of loose material depending on
the type of glacier and moraine in question.
It is this process that is said to have formed the various
fingers of reef currently accessed from ports like
Aberystwyth, Aberdovey, Porthmadoc and Pwllheli, all of
which attract vast numbers of black bream throughout the
summer months.
Obviously, the black breams arrival here will be a little later
than might be expected along the south coast due to the extra
time required to press further north from their southerly overwintering
grounds. But the link between West Wales and
black bream should at least be easier to understand. It's the
substrate that is key.
Geoff Thomas, Black Bream
Water temperature and food availability are also determining
as well as controlling factors in the overall picture, but must
work alongside as opposed to independently of the fishes
other needs.
I mentioned earlier the noticeable size reduction in black bream over recent years, and nowhere has this
been more evident to me than in Cardigan Bay. I once did a feature for one of the mags back in the late
70's to early 80's out from Aberdovey, where not only did we have an absolute beano of a day
numerically, but also in terms of the sheer quality of the fish, many of which topped three pounds, with
several topping four pounds.
One even came within an ounce of the Welsh record at the time. Not the six pounders of the early
Kingmere days. But they weren't seeing that quality of fish there any longer by that stage either.
The fishing along that middle stretch of Cardigan Bay over the moraines was quite outstanding, and
while that sort of quality can no longer be expected, I was none the less given a lesson in black bream
fishing there quite recently that has been well and truly etched on to my brain.
This was a trip out from Aberystwyth in 2011 with Dave Taylor aboard 'Aldeberan' who I'd fished with
many times over the years and who was about to retire, the idea being to produce a feature on the man
and the fishing, plus record a well deserved audio interview for archive.
On board that day was local school teacher Jeff Thomas who was fishing with a tiny fixed spool outfit
and was about to give us a master class by catching more black bream than everyone else on the boat
put together.
Bream are relatively small fish with equally small mouths, and quite often, problems in catching them
tend to be of anglers own making. I learned a long time ago that scaling down was the key to success
with bream, not only in terms of hook size, but also bait.
I've seen bream come up on size 6/0 hooks loaded with bait aimed at say conger. Stories of fish which
should never have been caught are always going to crop up. But these are the exceptions. The result of
sheer determination on the part of the fish, and dare I say it, bad fishing on the part of the angler in not
noticing something was happening down at the business end of things earlier.
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