A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S BREAM

If I had to get into the conversation about which summer species I like to catch the most, I’d get into a list of very subjective criteria that probably wouldn’t mean a whole lot to most people out there. We’re very fortunate in the UK that this influx of fish through the warmer months gives us an incredible variety of species to target. People who inhabit places like Dorset, Devon, Cornwall and the Channel Islands are luckier still; their geographical locations cause some rarer species to frequent their shores.

Black bream are a beautiful species to catch with the sun warming your face. I can remember being a child in the 1980s sitting on the rocks with my father, enjoying the afternoon sun and watching him catch them cast after cast, and by teatime we’d all be tucking into them on the BBQ. At dawn, dad occasionally had red bream from Herm Island’s Belvoir Bay, a truly fantastic venue in summer.

I became pretty good at catching them