Dean Macey is not exactly a stranger to Walthamstow Reservoirs. The former British decathlete turned full-time angler reckons he has fished the famous North London day-ticket complex on and off for around 25 years. But on a cold, northeasterly May session filmed for the KorumFishing channel, he made his first return to reservoirs Two and Three in several years and walked away with one of the better short sessions of his recent bream career: four fish in a "mad hour," with two of them over the double-figure mark, including a male of 12 lb 10 oz.
The complex itself is a coarse-fishing landmark. Macey opened with a quick run-through of its pedigree, noting that "almost every single one of them's done a carp over 40 lb, some of them over 50 lb. And alongside that, it's also done some giant bream, some massive tench." The bream was his target on this trip.
Conditions were anything but textbook. Macey arrived for the 7am gate opening — an hour too late for first light — did a couple of laps of reservoirs Two and Three, and saw nothing.
"I did a few laps around the two and the three," Macey said. "I didn't see a single thing and we've been here a couple of hours now, if I'm honest, with the rods out and I still haven't seen anything."
He picked a swim with an island on his left and open water to his right, but the wind was wrong on paper. "When I looked at my weather app this morning, it said northeasterly wind. That's not normally the wind that you would want to get on the end of," he said. "Albeit I will say this and the gremlins have already started. It's a lot warmer than a northeasterly is normally. So, maybe they are on the end of it."
The session ran on commitment. Macey put down a baited area with around 15 spombs of a dark mix — chopped worm, worm castings, Activate pellets, 10 mm Iso Fish boilies, micro PVA pellet and a sprinkle of hemp — then settled on three rods, all fishing a slightly heavier setup than typical bream tackle.
"12 lb is quite heavy for bream fishing, but remember it's the wear and tear of actually fishing, hitting the clip all the time," Macey explained. "When you're on venues like this where there is a potential for you hooking carp, you've got to be geared up to land the biggest fish you're likely to hook."
His rig of choice was a lead clip carrying a 3 oz lead, an 8 to 9 inch length of 10 lb fluorocarbon, a size six all-rounder, a critically balanced 10 mm wafter tipped with a worm, and a small PVA bag of pellets and crumb. The dark mix and worm-tipped hookbait were a deliberate response to Walthamstow's heavy bird traffic and to fish he considers wary after decades of pressure.
"I think they're quite cute and I think if they're going to settle on a bit of bait, they're probably likely to settle on a bit of bait that sort of blends in that's got a nice little pungent smell to it that's also got that natural element of the worm settling as well," Macey said.
Then came the burst. After hours of no shows, the bobbins started dropping back and the bites came in a cluster.
"This is actually one of three in a mad hours fishing this morning," Macey said as he held up the first double-figure fish — a 10 lb 7 oz bream. A 9 lb 13 oz specimen followed.
Then the male of the session.
"A woolly old male of 12 lb 10. A bit bigger than I thought he was going to be actually, but he's really solid and heavy and wide," Macey said. "There's something about these dark woolly barnacle type looking male fish. I just absolutely love them. They look prehistoric and this one is as prehistoric as they come."
A fourth bream, unweighed but in the 9 lb class, capped the run. Even Macey looked surprised at the tally on a day he had written off as a write-off.
"If you'd have told me at the start of the session I'd have caught four bream, two of them being double figures, one of them being a lovely 12 pounder, I'd have bit your arm off for that with the conditions that we're faced with," he said.