After starting a bream campaign on a new venue, Oxfordshire angler Paul Scowen had a tricky start, landing only small fish in his first few nights. However, after finding a spot around 160 yards out, he used an underwater camera to look for signs of fish and realised they were behaving more like carp than bream.

He told us “The fish were cruising alone or in small groups, occasionally dipping their heads, taking a single mouthful of feed and moving off. I’d been using traditional bream tactics, but after seeing the way they fed, I knew I’d need something more visual to give myself a chance of catching. My solution was to adopt carp tactics and fish a yellow pop-up tipped with worms so my hookbait stood out among the loosefeed. The change worked, and that session I had a 13lb 6oz female and 9lb 7oz male. Returning the following week, I got back in the same swim and managed the 15lb 15oz fish at first light.”After starting a bream campaign on a new venue, Oxfordshire angler Paul Scowen had a tricky start, landing only small fish in his first few nights. However, after finding a spot around 160 yards out, he used an underwater camera to look for signs of fish and realised they were behaving more like carp than bream.

He told us “The fish were cruising alone or in small groups, occasionally dipping their heads, taking a single mouthful of feed and moving off. I’d been using traditional bream tactics, but after seeing the way they fed, I knew I’d need something more visual to give myself a chance of catching. My solution was to adopt carp tactics and fish a yellow pop-up tipped with worms so my hookbait stood out among the loosefeed. The change worked, and that session I had a 13lb 6oz female and 9lb 7oz male. Returning the following week, I got back in the same swim and managed the 15lb 15oz fish at first light.”