2015 - Bleak fishing can be a powerful string to your bow.

       In recent years i have worked in Sweden and fished extensively with my Stockholm club the MATCH ANGLERS UNITED all over Sweden's huge water system of lakes , canals and rivers. During the course of a season we would encounter bleak especially in the late summer and early autumn period and they would shoal by the tens of thousands , the shoals were so dense you could actually fish of your net using a top two out of a whip. However in spring and summer the bleak would be more spread out and tougher to get a decent weight from.
       Over those years i fished with some very good match anglers who were expert at whip fishing and their prowess at this art is probably born out from their very popular 'Traditional mete ' which is fishing with a single bait and not being allowed to feed any freebies or ground bait . They also did not use keep nets but just brake the fishes neck and stuff them in a bag or in their seat box hole ready for weighing at the end of the match. This is still a very big event/s in Sweden but they are not anglers that are looking to spend a lot on their bait and equipments so basically they are not sitting on boxes but wandering from peg to peg catching and snapping. Its a very old set of people fishing this way and the kids look bored when participate . Thankfully many good anglers converted to 'Modern Mete' which is our form of angling today.
       Anyway back to Bleaking , as i said the breaking interest really got to me when in Sweden and by the time i had finished a 13 years stint i has accumulated some 18 whips ! But in that time i had seen some very good whip anglers who if there was a International on this method i believe Sweden would be in the TOP-3 !

Recent weights on the Wye:

       In England the art of whip fishing in recent years has seen this method almost disappear. Currently the River Wye is throwing up weights of 30-45lb of the silver sardines with potential for a 50lb weight in a 5 hour competition.Its apparent that the river Wye's shoals are immense and you are looking to catch 4/5 fish every minute that equates to some 300 bleak/hr x 5 hours that is a 1500 fish !! , if they are not disturbed. That is some serious unhooking and feeding along with keeping the action simple and hopefully just fishing with a 1/1.5/2 metre whips. If you are fortunate to gain 1500 fish and based on current River Wye weights then a close to 50 lb catch is feasible but imagine staying in one position either standing in the river or sitting on the box , for 5 hours !? Recent matches a weight of 43lb 4oz was attained also a reported catch of 1450 bleak (either good mental arithmetic or a counter was used)

Below is some of the bleak whips and rigs and also a catch return of a district match with another Stockholm team.

Triana Whips 

MILO Texiers

Tamas Walter

Colmic

A selection of my favourite swords

Weapons of choice

Preferred proximity of shot to hook

Preferred method of connection to whip

Shotting perfect

Rigged and ready

In action

two colour mix

After a days match the wear and tear on the unhooking hand

TEAM MILO IM1 whips were superb

Bait delivery by post

My wagon

team meeting

Many a winters evening 'getting riggy with it '

Bleak ground bait of choice

District match

7.3 kilos 

8 kilos

7 kilos

11 kilos

12 kilos

13 kilos

13.7 kilos for the master Lars Boden in .........a 4 hour standard swedish time match !!

         In some of the competitions in Sweden i seen the use of a net either placed on top of the existing keep net and tucked into the top ring . These nets were quite wide and some would be shaped around the waist of the angler . This was to minimise the loss of fish as they were hurled towards the anglers eager hand of chest so it was likely the fish would be released from the hook . I did see one angler placing a polythene sheet on his peg with his box on top and after the match he would pick up the bleak that had fell off (but i presume all of the were dead ).

        There was a few different surface ground baits on the market produced by SENSAS 'Surface' and MONDIAL 'Rapide' there was others from Triana and Colmic and even Trapper. However the best mixes were made with milk and the addition of red/ yellow SENSAS Pastoncino . Choice of bait on the hook was the maggot preferably an old one with a tough skin from being kept in sand . This would be thread up the hook . Other methods of not seeing the maggot move up the line was to leave a piece of line pointing up the shark of the hook towards the bend and that would stop the maggot from travelling . Hooks of choice were the Tubertini range which were long shank with a twist so a good connection existed in the bleak mouth. Line for me tended to be 0.16 line as it would take the wear and tear of constant unhooking.

Bleaking on the Soar

      Since my return to England i have encountered the bleak and they don't exist in the same quantities as Scandanavia in fact the recent River Wye matches have certainly yielded larger weights of Bleak i have ever seen here before. In two years of my return and back to the Soar i have only seen a few 3-5 lb weights of bleak and they have invariably been mixed with Minnows, chublettes , see through roach and bottle top skimmers and the odd Smelt ! The best exponent of catching these has been Darran Bickerton who stuck at fishing for Bleak when others dare not .His target bleak tended to move constantly so Darran was prepared to 'chase' them with different lengths of whips and at variable depths. Last year i also saw Dan Ashingon ping hemp at 10 metres for 3 hours long lining on single maggot then fishing the hemp for the last two hours and going a good supporting weight of roach. Another exponent of bleaking i have seen was Bryan Hawkes who fished a short 4 foot rig and hooked and threw the pole back constantly not breaking down the pole but swinging the fish in from the end of the top 2 . Quite a lot of arm aching shipping in and out however it gained a few pound when everywhere was struggling.

     It could take the Soar a few years before the bleak can be in huge shoals but since all the fish in the river are fighting a constant battle for survival with a huge population of pike then a good day on the Bleak for Soar standard would be about 2-4 lb for a 5 hour match in the summer and possibly up to 5-6 lb in the autumn . They will never be a winning a top 5 in a match but they certainly play their part in weight boosting and scraping through on tough sections.