The pole is carefully shipped out to the 14m line for the first put-in of the day. The swim has already been lightly baited with four small pole pots of micro pellets and a little hemp and sweetcorn spread out over the edge of a drop off.

  It’s 6am on a Sunday morning and the 200-year-old lake is already busy with day ticket anglers arriving steadily. Most of them are in pursuit of a 20lb-plus carp, but not Russ Evans.

  Oh No! Venue expert and top match angler Russ is after Old Lake’s bream, which are reputed to be among the hardest-fighting slabs anywhere in the UK.

   He’s already told me over the telephone when we organised the shoot about the qualities of the bream here. Uniquely in this country, they jump when hooked – sometimes so acrobatically, they arc across the water like a flying fish.

   I’m sceptical. Well, I would be, because my background is in carp fishing, and to us carp anglers the bream is a nuisance.

   But to match anglers, if you can target bream in your swim and get them feeding hard, you can build up a big weight and win money. So much the better, then, if they fight and provide a bit of an angling challenge as well.

   “In most matches here you need at least 50lb to frame,” says Russ as he watches his float.

  “But on a pleasure session, like today, if you get it right then 100lb nets are easily attainable.”

   A single half-pouch of B1 Micro Pellets is flicked out to his baited line 14 metres out, just to top the swim up.

   Patches of bubbles start to appear seconds of the pellets hitting the water. The fish are obviously there and they are feeding.

   Surely it’s only a matter of seconds before the carbon-stemmed float trembles and disappears, as a bronze-sided slab picks up the soft hooker pellet that is threaded directly onto a size 14 Preston PR28 hook.

   We both watch the float closely as the bubbles continue to surface. The bristle slowly rises before sliding away. Russ lifts the pole to strike and it’s ‘fish on’ time.

   In 11 years of angling journalism, I have never seen anything like what happens next.

  A bream of about 3lb launches itself clear of the water not once, not twice, but three times; on each occasion splashing back down in a cascade of spray.

  Had I been ready with the camera, I might have captured an image in angling that is as rare as I have ever seen, but there isn’t enough light for me to get a fast enough shutter speed that would have frozen the jumping bream in mid flight.

  “Not all of them jump,” says Russ as he slowly ships the fish back to the net, his elastic being pulled almost to the limit. “And usually they only exit the water when you hook them in the top lip. Hook them in the bottom lip and they behave like bream that you’d catch anywhere else.

   “On some days as many as half the fish that you hook will leap around like salmon. It will be interesting to see how many leaps we get today.”

   This is a slab with attitude. A good bream gone bad, as the Americans might say. Once in the net, it keeps on fighting, making the unhooking process harder than it should be. Are all Bury Hill bream like this?

  “Ha, ha,” laughs Russ as he finally gets the bronze-flanked specimen under control and slips it into the keepnet. “Yeah pretty much all of them are actually. They run to 8lb or so as well. You should experience one of the big fellas leaping around on the pole. Fun isn’t really the word when you’re fishing in a match and hook a big, jumping slab. You just want it in the net as quickly as possible.”

I can see his point.

Russ rebaits. It’s simplicity itself. He just threads a soft, pre-soaked Ringer hooker pellet onto the hook, then ships the pole back out. No messing around with hair rigs here. Then, once the float has settled, he catapults another half pouch of micro pellets around the float. This is followed by half a dozen or so free hooker pellets, just to maintain the interest of the fish.

That’s about it, and Russ has been doing very well in matches at the lake with his cautious, groundbait-free approach while others fishing more conventional bream tactics have struggled.

  Anglers often think that, to catch a big net of bream, you need to bait-up heavily. But that is not the story at Bury Hill.

  “It’s far better to go easy on the bait here,” explains Russ. “I start by introducing four small pole pots of micro pellets and a smidgen of hemp. I might put a dozen grains of corn in as well, just for the visibility factor. But that’s it to begin with.”

  “After that it’s just a case of topping-up the swim with micro pellets fairly regularly. I won’t use many though – over the course of a five-hour match, I might get through half a pint. And whatever you do, do not use groundbait here.

A lot of anglers make the mistake of feeding groundbait thinking that bream love the stuff, but here it tends to push the fish away.”

   Russ’s swim choice is also significant. In front of him, on either side of a channel, are two huge sets of lilies. It’s just beyond these, in open water, that he’s targeting his bream.

  Getting your spot right is crucial and plumbing the swim accurately before fishing is a good idea.

  Russ knows Old Lake intimately, having worked on site there for many years, and as a result he soon found a small drop-off at 14 metres where the depth went down a matter of a foot or so.

  “The fish patrol this ledge,” he explains.

“Presenting a bait hard of on the bottom just the other side of it is usually the best way to go. That said, it’s worth baiting-up two other lines as well – one close in, in the margins, the other tight to the lilies. Then if the 14m line goes cold, you can move closer in. Sometimes if there are tench and crucians around you can bag those too, especially close to the lily pads.”

   For the first couple of hours, the fishing is hectic. There’s not a single put-in when Russ doesn’t get an indication.

  He connects with every fish too – each one of them a bream between 1 to 4lb, averaging somewhere in between.

  As the light gets better, I fit my 300mm zoom lens to my camera and start focusing on the float in an attempt to get what photojournalists call the ‘money shot’.

  I desperately want a picture of a bream in mid-air to everyone that, at Bury Hill, they do leap.

  But my efforts are to be in vain because, after that first fish, ‘leapers’ prove to be few and far between. And, typically, when one does jump, it does so when my camera isn’t trained on it.

  The conditions are perfect for bream fishing.

It’s muggy, overcast and mild. The only time during the entire day when the bites dry up is when the sun comes out for an hour or so.

Then, as soon as the clouds move in, back on the feed come the bream.

  “Here, have a go yourself,” says Russ at lunchtime, handing me his “2,000 Dawia pole.

  “Just don’t break any sections. I’ve only just paid for that pole.”

  I grasp the opportunity with relish. After all, I’ve caught a number of species around the world that jump acrobatically, from tarpon in Cuba through to sailfish in Kenya and the prehistoric- looking Saratoga of tropical Australia.

But I can catch an Old Lake leaping bream? Can I b******s!

I soon find out that Russ makes things look exceptionally easy. Whereas he rarely misses a bite, I just can’t time my strikes correctly at all, and in the 20 minutes or so that I fish, I connect with two fish and lose them both… when they jump!

  This is remarkable really, seeing as I once landed eight tarpon in succession on fly gear in Cuba – and tarpon are supposed to be the hardest of all the ;leaping fish species in the world to land!

I continue to try but my efforts are to no avail and, in the end, I give up and the pole back to Russ, Who carries on making things look easy by landing another four-pounder a minute or so later.

  “When the jump, you need to lower the pole into the water as soon as possible,” he says.

Well, I have no test experience of pole fishing for anything, let along good-sized bream with bad attitudes.

  A thunderstorm breaks out midway through the afternoon, cutting the session short.

 Day turns to night as the dark, menacing clouds roll in, so we hurriedly empty the keepnet and get our shot.

  In total, Russ has caught an impressive 44 bream averaging around 3lb, along with some skimmers. Now that’s good fishing, however you look at it – whether bream jump or not!

The Tactical Stuff

Jim Foster: Russ, I have noticed from your approach that you were very careful with your loose feed. Why was this?

Russ Evans: It’s important not to overfeed. This will produce many line bites, which result in missed bites and foul hookers, both of which spook fish. When using soft pellets on the hook it’s vital to make every bite count.

JF: How do you structure your loose feeding and how much bait will you put in?

RE: At the start I cup out four small pots of B1 micro pellets and hemp, along with the odd grain of corn to add a bit of colour. I don’t dump all the feed in one area, I spread it around the 3ft line.

  I put the initial feed where the first ledge is. That’s normally within 10 to 14 metres of the bank. I then catapult half a small pouch of feed pellets out every five minutes, including a pinch of hemp, until I get my first bite.

When the fish are feeding I catapult out every 10 to 15 minutes and introduce my a few offerings of my hook bait pellets after every fish I land, just to keep them interested. At some point, normally when the sun comes out, the fish will back off the baited area. At this stage it pays to add another section and fish further out, but I still feed the original line as the bream will move back.

During a five-hour match I feed very little, using half a pint of the micro pellets and a quarter of a bag soft hooker pellets. I do not use any ground bait as the fish always back off from it on the pole line.

JF: Do you expect to catch straight away?

RE: I expect to have to wait 40 minutes or so for an indication. In a match situation I’ll be falling behind during this time but I’m confident that I’ll catch up and forge ahead. I expect around 50lb to 60lb in a match – only three hours of which I will be catching.

JF: I also noticed that you were fishing fairly heavy line given that you’re after bream. Is this due to thick lilies?

RE: Basically, yes. I use 0.15mm Preston PowerLine for my main line and a 6in hooklength, which is tied with 0.13mm PowerLine. I’m quite happy to use a size 12 or 14 hook too – then if I latch into a bonus tench or carp, I’ll have a chance of getting it in.

JF: Float choice is important too?

RE: it is. The float I tend to use at Bury Hill for the bream is a Preston Series C 4x18. It’s got a carbon stem, an oval- shaped body and a nice thick plastic bristle, which shows the bites well.

  I bulk nine No8s about eight inches from the hook, with another No8 just above the short hook length (see diagram). It’s essential to fish four to six inches overdepth to really pin down the bait, as the bigger the bream in the 4lb to 7lb range do not like a moving hook bait. I target the bigger bream as these are needed to win, to frame, in 90 per cent of matches.

  Having this bulk down is crucial to good presentation when there is a tow on the water as it makes the bait stable. Get the presentation wrong in these conditions and you won’t get a bite.

JF: And your elastication system?

RE: I normally use a 14/16 Drennan Bungee elastic set slack, to cope with the ‘jumpers’ – if it were set too tight you’d pull the hook out too often and lose a fish. When they do this it’s important to get the pole tip down quickly and under the water as soon as possible. This stops them from throwing the hook. Using a 0.13mm hooklength also stops them from breaking the hooklength on the initial ‘leap for freedom’.

JF: You were fishing three lines – one in the edge, one tight to the lilies and one at 14 metres in open water between the lilies. Why?

RE: In open water I plumb-up, find the first ledge and concentrate mainly in that area, as I’m confident that at some point during the session the fish will turn up and stay long enough to put together a good weight.

Today I’ve the luxury of lily pads around me, so I fed a line close in, in case the main bream line was slow. My main line today was at 14 metres. This took me past the pads, where I expected the bream to be feeding well in the overcast conditions.

JF: I noticed that you soaked your pellets in bloodworm juices, or something a bit grim like that…

RE: Yes, it’s a big edge. The additive I use for bream is a bloodworm based liquid which I soak into the pellets overnight. It’s called B1 attractant and is made by BCUK, my sponsors.

JF: Finally, can you tell us a bit more about the hooker pellets you were using?

RE: I was using Ringer 6mm Bag-Up pellets, which I soaked overnight in the B1 attractant. For a bit of variety, I also soaked a few ‘hookers’ in some Hi Attract additive, which gives the pellet a nice red tinge.

  On hard days I find the fish respond more to coloured pellets like this. I also use and colour 3mm Hi Attract expanders, which double up nicely on a size 14 Preston P28 hook.

Angler File

Name Russ Evans

Age 46

Born Plaistow, East London, living in Oxted Surrey

Occupation Team captain of southern match outfit BCUK Sport One. Also tackle shop manager at Bury Hill Fishery

Best catch 250lb net of bream from Lough Erne, Ireland

Angling Ambitions To qualify for Fish ‘O’ Mania final.

Top Tip

Groundbait is the kiss of death on the Old Lake as the bream have learnt to back away from it. Russ only feeds micro pellets and a little bit of hemp and corn. He expects to have to wait for up to an hour for a bite, but he is confident that the fish will turn up and then stay in his peg.

Top Tip

Fishing really softer expanders is crucial to the success of Russ’s approach. Russ prepares his expanders the night before he fishes to ensure the hook baits are very soft and readily sucked in by Bury Hill’s shy bream.

Tcf Tackle Tips