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Target Achieved - Justin Grapes
After work, I arrived at Bawburgh Lake to find Daryn already there, claiming that the area we wanted to fish was mostly empty. I quickly chose a swim and started to setup, the first thing I did was get out the marker rod to gauge what the weed situation was like as I had picked a shallow corner. There wasn’t much weed to speak of, but there were patches of weed across the lake, I spotted a patchy area with a clean bottom so I decided to put two rods here and one in an area that appeared clear of weed.
My plan was to not put too much bait out in order to ascertain what was rolling in the swim, I'd then make my decision from there. Initially, I put out about six spombs of caster, maggots, chopped worms and 2mm S-pellets. Due to the weeds, I used a heli rig with a pop up worm and a couple of rods with fake casters and PVA mesh bags of caster nicked on the hook.
There were a few fish rolling close to the bank as it grew darker, but the night passed with no action. I woke up bright and early to judge the situation, there were a few fish rolling in the swim opposite and a lot more in the swim right next to it. I decided to give myself until 10am, if nothing happened by then, I’d move to a different swim.
I received a phone call from my friend Peter who was sitting in the swim opposite, he informed me he would be leaving by lunch time, so I began packing down in the hope that I could take his spot when he left. Fortunately, I managed to get into Peter’s swim before anyone else could! I could see some fish rolling by so I was fairly confident that I’d get a bite or two sooner or later. I’d actually fished in this swim a lot over the years and so I had a spot to fish logged into my phone. I got out the marker sticks and readied up the rods, I wasted no time in casting out in the hope that I’d get some bites.
I then turned my thoughts to my baiting strategy, since the swim hadn’t exactly been heavily baited, especially with maggots and casters etc. I opted to chuck a load out and sit on it 24 hours and hope for the best. So, shortly after lunch I reeled in and prepared the spomb, I made a mix consisting of two pints of casters, four pints of maggots and two kilos of Advanta spod mix, half a match pack of lob worms chopped up (with mud) and half a kilo of 2mm S-pellets. This is a lot more bait than I usually use in a session as I think more often than not, an area that is too heavily baited can scare off the fish. For some reason though, I just felt like the fish would be up for some grub! After preparing this feast for the tench, I popped home for a shower and a cuppa with the Mrs. Upon my return, I went to see Daryn and we had a chat about the activity in the lake our tactics for the next couple of days.
Without further ado, I prepared my rigs for the evening ahead and made a PVA bag for each rig. I used two inline pear leads with a Korda supernatural hook link and a size 14 Korum X-pert power with three Drennan fake casters on the hair. One was on a lead clip setup, with the same hooklink setup, but with Enterprise maggots on the hair and a bag of maggots for good measure. I was using the lead clip setup as I was fishing next to a bank of eel grass, I wanted to be sure I’d dump the lead on the take.
As the evening progressed, the amount of activity from the fish increased and I soon found myself doing battle with my first tench of the session. After a short, but hard fight I had a big tench in the net. I lifted my prize onto the mat, carefully unhooking her and getting the sling and scales ready. It looked about 9lb to me but I could also see that it was carrying spawn, so I wasn’t too surprised when it weighed in at 9lb 9oz, needless to say, I was chuffed.
With this being my biggest catch of the spring, I called Darryn over for a picture. Darryn was more than happy to reel in and get a glance of the tench. After a few photos, we both retired back to our brollies for some sleep. I was fully expecting a long and undisturbed nights sleep, however, during the early hours, I was awoken by a run from a tench! I stumbled out of my pit and started to fight the tench, I was still half asleep and so I didn’t properly take in everything that was going on.
After a few nervous minutes, I landed it! During the last few seconds of the fight, it sounded like a pig splashing around in the water so I suspected it was a big one. I peeled back the mesh to reveal what appeared to be a monster tench! I hurried to grab the scales, zeroing the sling before lifting the heavy fish onto it, excited to see whether or not I’d achieved my goal of catching a double-figure tench. The needle sprung forward to 11lb and stayed there. I was ecstatic, there were few fist pumps and ‘get ins’!
I put the fish into my retaining net and got things sorted before recasting. I then went to wake up Daryn with the good news, considering it was the early hours of the morning, he seemed happy for me! Once I began to calm down and get over the events of the morning I tried to get some sleep but to no avail, so instead I settled for watching the sun rise.
I didn’t have to wait long before Daryn came over to get some pictures with the monster. Back on the fishing front, there were a few tench rolling in the area, but not the baited area. I wasn’t too bothered because a lot of the time just because you have a baited area doesn’t mean you’ll catch. Daryn returned back to his swim and shortly afterwards I had a drop back bite, I struck into what felt like a small fish. It turned out to be the smallest tench I’d ever caught at Bawburgh Lakes, at just 2 1/2lb.
Around an hour later I had another bite and landed a hard-fighting 8lb 5oz female, things were definitely picking up, or so I seemed. There was a bit of a lull after this tench but as it happened, the lull didn’t last too long. About halfway through the morning I had a recast and had a bite within half an hour, I was over the moon to be getting bites so quickly. The majority of my bites were coming from caster rigs, though I still kept a maggot rig on the go just in case it tempted a maggot eater.
I had yet another bite at around lunchtime which went into some weed, but the hook pulled and after that, it went quiet. I was running low on bait so I decided to take a trip to Angling Direct and replenish my supplies; I got back during the early hours of the afternoon and put out the same bait in the hope that I’d be in with a chance of catching some more monster tench.
I had a bit of a social with Darryn before casting out for the evening, both hopeful that we might get a bite or two. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any bites that evening but all hope wasn’t lost, I could see fish rolling in the area so I remained optimistic. It took a wake-up bite just before first light for things to get going again and at 6lb 3oz, I’d say it was a good start to the day!
Again at 4:45am I caught a cracking 7lb 8oz male, shortly followed by an impressive 9lb 3oz female. Thing went from good to fantastic very quickly and it wasn’t long before I had three more tench: a 7lb 11oz and an 8lb 5oz male, the icing on the cake was a 10lb 1oz female! I couldn’t believe my luck!
Over the course of the next hour, I had another four bites and landed three. Two of the three were 7lb 11oz and the other was a small one just over 4lb. All morning the weather was overcast but then at around 8:30 am the sun made itself known, unfortunately, the bites dried up with its appearance. I persisted though, casting out every hour until the early afternoon but with no results.
The action-packed weekend was a nice way to end the successful campaign. Throughout the whole spring campaign, my caster rig was the most popular amongst the tench. I’m not sure I’ll have the chance to do any more tench fishing as spawning time is approaching fast and I’ve got some sea fishing trips in Lincolnshire planned, but until the next blog, tight lines and don’t give up on your goals!
