West & Fens: Bream starting to show nicely at Springside Lake

Springside Lake has come back with a bang despite the iffy weather.

Bream have been showing in numbers, with one angler bagging 29 of them in a session, comfortably smashing the 100lbs barrier with fish in the 3-4lbs bracket.

Trying a different peg the following day, he knocked out another 16 of them, on a lake where all methods seem to offer an equal chance.

Regulars catch well on both pole and float, with pegs along the field bank all offering a chance to get among the bream. The lake drops away steeply from the margins, so you don't need to go too far out to find them.

In fact it drops away even further, looking at the water lapping around the platforms after the recent deluge.

Maggot is best-avoided, because of numbers of small rudd in most pegs. Pellets or even the humble corn are what does the damage on here.

Tench are an interesting prospect on Springside. While the odd tinca turns up in most pegs from time to time, usually close in, they seem to favour swims along the road bank, where they're sometimes caught up to the 7-8lbs mark. While carp can also show just about anywhere, they cruise the margins in tight to the platforms. Pegs near the car park are favoured but fish heavy, because when you latch into some of the bigger specimens they're off like rockets towards the reeds.

Fishery bosses Rob Pepper and Mick Cornell are planning some evening opens in a few weeks' time.

Elsewhere rising water levels might bring hopes the drought's on the way out, but it's going to take something like 50 days' solid rain to replenish the so-called soil moisture deficit.