“Those dreams eventually came true and between 10am and 1pm I received three bites..”

During a recent bream trip Trevor Pole was struggling to get past the weed in the lake but by using a small boat he managed to overcome the weed which resulted in a cracking 4 fish catch.

Trevor told us “The Cambridgeshire gravel pit I pinned my hopes on is daunting to some anglers due to its sheer size. But it has an incredible potential for producing specimen bream to over 20lb, so I planned a few sessions there last spring to see if I could catch them.
Bream dislike feeding in weed so I knew I had my work cut out as the lake is choked with the stuff. The clear patches seemed to be non-existent and despite numerous casts with the marker rod, I just couldn’t find an area I was happy with within comfortable casting range, so I suffered my share of blanks.

I thought hard over the winter about what I could do and remembered I had an old 10ft sniper boat in my garage with a mini electric outboard. Considering small vessels are allowed on this water for baiting-up I didn’t think twice about bringing it down for a 48hr session around a fortnight ago. After arriving at lunchtime I settled in a swim that looked promising with plenty of open water to go at. I set out in my boat with a prodding stick to help search the lakebed for gravel spots. After five minutes and travelling a distance of probably 120yds, I discovered a big clearing and a 7ft-deep gravel plateau. I marked the spot with H blocks and baited it with a generous amount of casters, maggots, chopped worm, corn and groundbait.

I then motored back to the bank to collect my rigs – which were heli-rigged fake casters popped up with rig foam – and ferried them back to the spot. As night fell I was confident of getting a bite knowing my rigs were on clear ground, and this was confirmed at 2am when I had a screaming run resulting in a 10lb tench. It wasn’t my intended species but at least I knew my rigs were working.

After slipping it back I motored back out to the spot at 4am to rebait and reposition the rods. I got back to the swim and sat watching the water for signs of fish through the mist and hoped the bream would feed through the morning. Those dreams eventually came true and between 10am and 1pm I received three bites – each from specimen bream weighing 15b 2oz, 14lb 11oz and 16lb 13oz. All that hard work paid off but I couldn’t have done it without the use of that boat. I know boating out your baits isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but it was the difference between catching and blanking for me.