Massive pair of bream for 34lb 11oz!

Alan Stagg’s run of form has showed no sign of slowing up as he has landed one of the biggest ever braces of specimen bream with two fish for a combined weight of 34lb 11oz.

The fish – which tipped the scales at 17lb 6oz and 17lb 5oz – were caught by the Gardner Tackle media manager from a southern gravel pit over the Bank Holiday weekend.

“As the temperatures had dropped slightly I knew the fish would still be holding their weight and had a feeling a big fish could be on the cards,” he told Angling Times. “The lake was really busy when I arrived and I spent the first couple of days in a swim that deep down I knew I had little chance of catching from.
“On the Sunday morning I spotted some big bream feeding on a hatch in the upper-layers at long range. Fortunately a swim had become available so I packed up my kit and moved halfway round the lake to get as close to the fish as possible.”

Alan was able to locate a gravel bar, just short of where the fish had been showing, at 85yds range, and using a spod he baited the feature with a mixture of 4mm trout pellets, crushed CC Moore Odyssey XXX boilies and 1kg of corn.

Over the top of this he cast rigs comprising 15lb Gardner Trickster Heavy and size 8 Covert Wide Gape Talon Tip hooks baited with a combination of two pieces of Enterprise imitation corn and a 15mm boilie tipped with a piece of buoyant corn.

“During the evening the fish started to show just off the feed. As darkness fell I had a bite on my middle rod and I instantly knew it was going to be a big fish. After gingerly leading it in I slipped the net under a huge male slab. The scales registered a weight of 17lb 6oz and I was understandably pretty damn pleased with the result. I had just slipped the fish into a retainer to recover for a couple of minutes when I received a take on my left-hand-rod. This resulted in a second specimen of 17lb 5oz.

“I’ve had an incredible few weeks. Up until the start of May I’d spent seven years trying to break my old bream personal best of 16lb 7oz – I’ve now caught four fish over that week in the last few weeks!”

Doubles caught this season
17lb 6oz
17lb 5oz
17lb 3oz
16lb 12oz
14lb 12oz
13lb 14oz
13lb 4oz
13lb 2oz
12lb 12oz
12lb 10oz
12lb 4oz
12lb 2oz
11lb 12oz
11lb 10oz
11lb 6oz
11lb 2oz

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