A Day with Duncan Charman After Bream

After getting some bits done for Angler's Mail with Duncan, he kindly offered to guested me on his local Badshot Lea Complex. Duncan knew my Personal Best Bream was nothing very impressive, so the intention was to beat this. Duncan showed me a Helicopter rig setup which consisted of 6lb mainline with a short hook link (Duncan uses 5.14lb preston powerline). The hook bait was maggots and the ground bait consisted of a mix with some crushed up Boilie.

After being kindly dropped at the complex by Duncan's father, Duncan had already managed a few bream from 4lbs to just under 6lbs by the time we had got there. Without further ado, we casted out the helicopter rigs with one closer in and the other considerably further out. It wasn't too long until the bobbin started to rise with the alarm sounding with the first bream going exactly 5lbs. I learnt on this trip, that when hitting into a run on this method, you merely have to pick up the rod calmly, otherwise the fish are likely to 'crack' off. After a couple of bream which were likely to be under 5lbs, the close in rod's bobbin slowly rose and then smashed the top with line screaming off the reel. "Get the backwind on mate" Duncan said, as he knew what I was into was a considerably better fish indeed. The fish went on a unstoppable run, literally rocketing into the middle of the lake. After taking a lot of line, I managed to start guiding the fish towards me. This of course had to be done gently as it was a light hook link. After a few more minutes of arm-aching action and the carp kiting aggressively from left to right, I managed to guide it into the waiting net. After giving it a deserved amount of rest, we realised the carp was a good double and despite it seeing better days a fantastic bonus on this kind of tackle!

A Double Figure Carp

I was very happy with this result and it was great to see the fish swim off as strongly as before! Quite a few bream came to follow after this including this fine fish being the biggest of the day and my new Personal Best at 5lb 9oz, still not massive but a considerable improvement from before.

5lb 9oz Bream

Duncan's father Tony was running low on maggots, therefore Duncan headed off to get some and left us both to fish. Tony had managed a few good bream too already. Just after I whacked out the far out rod, it was long until I got another lively take after this more dry spell I was having. I was into a good fish which was kiting from left to right and even managed to go over Tony's lines. After starting to guide it from the margins, the hook unfortunately pulled. A bit of slime was left on the line and it was a shame to have lost what I reckoned was a nice Tench. Not feeling too disheartened though I got the rig back out. After a very, very quiet spell with Tony only managing a couple of bream and a nice tench of 4lb 12oz, I got my first run for a while. This was another nice bream of round the 5lb range. After a couple more smaller bream, I had another take. This fish fought very differently and topped almost straight away. When we got it in the net, it turned out to be a large roach/bream hybrid, which for me was definitely a PB of sorts. The fish weighed 3lbs 10oz, a cracking looking fish and by the time we put it back, we decided to call it a day as the lake usually goes dead around 2pm for the bream and tench anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed the day and I certainly would recommend a day with Duncan Charman as he certainly knows what he is talking about, and you can book a day or two with him by just sending an email to duncancharman@icloud.com.

3lb 10oz Hybrid

A big thank you to Duncan and Tony Charman for a Great day!

Tight Lines,

Tom