We recently had the pleasure of David Burleigh’s company after he kindly flew across from Northern Ireland for a visit.

David is an Irish international who has competed in three World Championships and also owns the very impressive Fishing Tackle & Bait store in Enniskillen, just a stone’s throw from the mighty River Erne.

Like everyone who visits our Drennan HQ he was genuinely surprised to see actual manufacturing and engineering of tackle. Visitors are always surprised to see products such as AS pole floats being constructed, E-S-P Bobbins being machined on CNC lathes and even powergum and catapult elastics being extruded.

After a tour of one of our warehouses it felt only right for David to sample some English fishing before his flight home. A quick session after bream on the idyllic Club Pool at Orchid Lakes was called for!

With high temperatures and little wind the bream were typically reluctant to begin with. It also seemed impossible to feed off the hordes of little roach feeding up in the water. Chopped worm, corn, casters and groundbait were all a magnet for these smaller fish. A bucket full of bait would probably not have fed them off!

It was only when a new swim was fed with 4mm hard pellets and corn that David could finally get a hook bait in the swim long enough to tempt his target species. Even a soft 6mm Yum Yums hooker pellet was being snaffled on the drop by roach, however, so the only solution on the day was a hard pellet. This was a much more resilient and roach-proof hook bait and did the trick. Several quality bream gave a good account of themselves on Green Bungee before it was sadly time to call the session to an end.

In hindsight we could have had a great day simply whipping in roach after roach (just like what Dave is used to back in Ireland!) but it turned out to be a nice thought-provoking session trying to work out how to single out the bigger bream.

David was all smiles afterwards and we are sure he flew home with a fresh perspective on the quality, enthusiasm and attention to detail that goes into everything Drennan produces!

Thanks to Orchid Lakes at Dorchester in Oxfordshire for their kind hospitality.