How To STOP Catching Bream When Carp Fishing!

BREAM - love them or hate them, a lot of our favourite carp fisheries are full of them! An impressive fish in their own right and good sport on the right tackle, bream must be respected, but they present a real nightmare for carp anglers. These greedy fish snaffle our rigs, eat a lot of our bait and can make the process of catching a carp a lot more difficult. In this article we share some great tips that will help you avoid them...

STAY OUT THE DEEP MIDDLE

As a general rule, bream favour deeper and more open water. You will catch fewer of them around island margins or indeed in the near or far margin, the open areas seem to be where they happily graze more frequently.

A shoal fish, bream feed a little like cattle, grazing on areas of silt and gravel, munching on every last morsel they can find between them. Depths of over 6ft or more become real bream hotspots but are also good areas to find carp at the right time of year. They aren't stupid, just like carp, they know where the natural food will be and when to get it. 

If your lake has a deep middle troff and bream are becoming an issue out there, try pulling your rigs back to just off the marginal shelf, or even up the shelf in shallow water. If they are really ravenous, bait still may even draw them to these areas but it won't be a natural feeding zone for them.

Our Donky Pear Lead is a great choice for leading about and finding the best spots, particularly when used with braid. 

GET IN THE WEED

Sounds daft right? Who likes fishing in weed? Well, if you want to avoid catching bream and only catch carp, putting your rigs right into weedy lakebeds is a good way to do it. For some reason, bream are less keen on picking angler's bait out of weed, preferring silty and cleaner areas. Carp on the other hand love taking bait out of the weed.

If you are carp fishing directly into weed, make sure you use a rig that will present properly. Remember, as long as your hookbait and hookpoint are free of the weed, you're fishing! Solid Bags, Hinge Stiff Rigs and Chod Rigs are all good options for weedy bottoms. 

When feeding in the weed, try to use bait that won't fall directly through it. Chopped boilies and crumb hang up nicely in the weed and can keep the fish rummaging around for hours. 

STAY AWAY FROM PELLETS!

Pellets are a great bait for many species of fish, including carp, but bream absolutely love them! Fishmeal pellets are like a bream magnet, they can't stay away from them, and when fed in large quantities you can be certain a big shoal of old bream will drop quickly on them and start devouring the whole lot. You might love using pellets in your carp fishing, but if there are big numbers of bream in your water, cut them out unless you want to be winding in big snottys all night!

DON'T PICK PARTICLES... OR NATURALS EITHER!

You might now be thinking you're running out of bait options, as yes, particles and naturals like worms or maggots are also not a good option if your lake is full of bream. In fact, worms, which are a phenomenal underused edge for carp are also a ridiculously good bream attractor.

To be honest, Spombing or Spodding anything out in a tight and large quantity is a good way to ensure some bream come and investigate. But don't worry, there are some baits they will take a bit longer to get through. 

USE BOILIES... REALLY BIG ONES TOO!

As some of you would have guessed already and found out yourselves, using a boilie-only approach is a good way to lower the amount of bream you catch and ultimately increase your chance of catching more carp. Bream still enjoy eating boilies, after all, most of the takes we get from these nuisance fish are on those little round balls, but it takes them a lot longer to get through good quantities of larger offerings. 

If bream are really causing you problems, try spread baiting with large 18mm or more baits. This baiting approach is something the shoal won't be so concentrated on and it will give some space for the carp to get in on the action, even if the bream have taken a few. Match this with a really big double 'Snowman' hookbait and you won't catch anywhere near as many bream as you would with other baits.

TIGER NUTS ARE WORTH A GO

Not 100% bullet-proof at avoiding bream but a better option than other particles, tiger nuts are well worth a try. Carp love them too, in fact, they are one of the best carp baits going and can be fed in small quantities.

To further deter the bream and single out the carp, fish multiple tigers on the hair, this can make it harder for the bream to pick up. Fished over a small bag of chopped tigers with our ChopStix System, you have a wicked little carp trap which bream won't be as keen on.

USE HEAVY AND CUMBERSOME RIGS

Due to their shape and size, fishing baits popped-up high off the bottom is probably your best way to avoid the attentions of bream. Opt for something like a Hinged Stiff Rig or Chod Rig with our Chods Away Long and your chances of catching less bream but more, and bigger, carp, will dramatically increase.

Try to make the entire rig more heavy and cumbersome; big hooks, heavy hooklinks and large hookbaits are your best friends in bream-infested waters.

USE FAKE BAITS

Whilst they will still readily take them, using fake baits like those in our Revibed Range is a good method to stop smaller bream from totally destroying your hookbait and leaving you with nothing.

The Corn Caves and Pellet Caves are not only superb imitations for the real thing, they have a cavity that can be stuffed with paste and other goodies. You could try and fill them with a bream repellant, if such a thing exists.

If you are desperate to fish with worms but don't want bream turning them into heads, tails and skins in no time at all, you could always try our Slow Sinking Imitation Worms. These look and smell incredible, the fish won't tell the difference but they will last you a lifetime, or how long it takes for a carp to arrive and smash them! 

GET SCREWED

Bream are phenomenally reliable bait robbers, especially if you are using bait screws. That's where the innovative design of our Tweakers Eyed Bait Screw comes in. For the ultimate in hookbait security, the Eyed Bait Screw is the absolute one. It can be used in the traditional screw on fashion, but the eye means floss and Bait Blobs can be added for extra security, making your hookbait an immovable object! 

CATCH ENOUGH OF THEM

This might not be what everyone wants to do, but on some lakes, sometimes your best option is to just keep catching the bream until the carp arrive. There's plenty of logic in this approach, as it will help you determine how much you need to be feeding. Try to get them to avoid your hookbait completely and they may well eat all your free offerings and leave you totally unaware. If you're on a venue where you're happy to recast regularly, this may well turn out to be your best option. 

Small hookbaits and Solid Bags are a sure fire method to keep those bobbins bouncing up and down with those infamous odd bleeps that usually means a bream is on the other end. They just might get a bit much at 2am in the morning!

Use these tips, avoid the bream and go catch some carp! 

 Author Chris Haydon has just joined the OMC Family after six years working for the UK's number 1 fishing publication, the Angling Times. He is a keen coarse and carp fishing all-rounder, fishing in the South West region, including the famous Cotswold Water Park.