Ace specimen angler and reigning British Dace record holder Simon Ashton from Durham has reported a tremendous catch of big Bream from a Nottinghamshire Stillwater, taking 10 big fish including ‘slabs’ of 13lb 13oz, 13lb 1oz, 12lb 15oz, 12lb 10oz, 12lb 2oz, and 10lb 5oz. The biggest fish set a new personal best – Simon reporting that he has now smashed three bests in three months (adding to his recent Roach and Tench).

Simon located a clean gravel bar at a range of 65 yards, which he baited up with a spod mix incorporating Red Krill flavoured maggots with 20 lightly chopped Dendra worms, Supercrush green, hemp, giant corn and a bag of 2mm feed pellets – which kept the Bream picking and feeding for pretty much the whole 48hr session.

Hardware consisted of the Drennan Distance Specialist Tench & Bream 12ft 2lb rods combined with Shimano mini-pit reels and ESP Syncro 12lb mainline. Simon fished each rod on different end-tackle tactics, either an elasticated 45g Preston flat method feeder, with a six-inch 10lb Gravel Braid hooklink to 2 Dendra worms as hookbait, or a Drennan 2oz medium Bolt-Rig Inline maggot feeder with a 6-inch hooklink and a size 10 Specimen Plus hook baited with either a maggot aligner or Worm (see picture).

Simon reported that he’d had to think about his tactics carefully as the lake in question has been pressured over the last few weeks due to a succession of big carp being caught – and the biggest Bream of the session, spookily taken at 11.59pm on Friday 13th, smashed his old PB taken from the same lake exactly 1 year ago to the day!

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