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Tench Fishing Update - Justin Grapes
I started fishing in the area right after another tench angler had finished up, resigning after a few days of little action. I wasn’t very hopeful because I know the angler is a very good one, but I thought I’d give it a shot anyway. I decided to fish in a different area of that particular swim, so I retained some hope.
After a quick plumb-up to gauge what the weed was like, I marked up my rods and baited the area with about 2 pints of maggot and a pint of caster. I also baited the area near the bank (about a rod length out) as there is a patrol route here that leads into the main baited area.
I opted to fish with one rod in this spot for the night and at around 12:45am, I heard my line accelerate into a screaming run, after fumbling around trying to get my shoes and head torch on, I was finally connected to a fish. Fortunately, as I was fishing close to the bank, the fight didn’t last long and I soon had a 7lb 5oz lean, male tench in my net. It was a welcome capture and my biggest of the Spring so far.
After taking a few quick photos, I slipped the tench back into the water and reset my rod. I also baited the area a bit more – I always do this just in case the fish has cleaned the spot out. Despite my efforts, nothing more happened that night but I remained hopeful for the morning.
At first light I was up and scoping out the area for any fish activity, I noticed a few signs but after an hour or so of fishing with no results, I thought I’d try my luck by casting outside of my main baited area. Again, nothing, so I decided to call it a day. Maybe the next session would yield better results.
By the next weekend I was planning my longest session of the season, and as it was the bank holiday, I booked the Friday off from work and started on Thursday night, right after work. My fishing buddy Darryn was there from Tuesday, so I managed to get some information from him which gave me an idea of what the lakes were fishing like.
Following my discussion with Darryn, I decided to tackle the swim behind him as I suspected the fish might be moving on the changing wind, Daryn and I had also decided to have a barbeque and a social!
The night proved fruitless and I didn’t see much the next morning to suggest that tench were in the area, so I chose to make a move, while I was half way through packing up my gear, Daryn had a couple of runs and landed two nice tench, he then invited me to join his swim for 24 hours until he had to set off.
After some consideration, I set up camp and cast out two inline lead set-ups, both baited with Drennan fake casters on the hair and a large bag of casters nicked on the hook, I also had one maggot feeder rig on my third rod. By 8:30am I had my first bite, but unfortunately I didn’t land it as the hook pulled. I didn’t have to wait long for another opportunity though, as within a couple of hours I had a fish in the net, a nice one around 7lb.
As Daryn left that afternoon, I was joined in the swim by my good friend Stewart Downing for a social and hopefully for a lively tench session. After an evening of chewing the fat and a cheeky glass of wine, it was time to hit the sack in preparation for an early start. I awoke at first light and noticed a few fish rolling, so popped the rods on the spots, at 6:30am I had a run, but upon picking up the rod, there was nothing there! How do they manage to do that?!
Well, after a fair bit of head scratching and reassessing my setup, I had another go and hooked into small, yet scrappy tench which again managed to shake the hook. I wasn’t happy!
I changed the rig and tried a different hook, then cast out again. Some time passed and then I had another run, and thankfully this one stayed on the hook! The tench slid into the net and on closer inspection it was a cracking sized male, weighing in at 7lb 7oz. After such a disappointing morning, I was extremely happy to be holding a big male tench for a photo.
After that bout of excitement, things went really quiet and unfortunately it stayed like this for the next and last 12 hours of my session.
The following Friday I was back on the complex and with news of tench being caught on Lodge, I decided I would give this area a try. On arrival it didn’t take me long to see the first signs of fish as I spotted two nice Tench roll. I quickly darted straight back to the van to get my gear; having fished in this area before, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect but I still used my Deeper Pro+ to see exactly what conditions were like out there in the swim. I found a spot where there was a shallow bar of around 4’, which slipped into deep water on both sides. However, as I pulled the Deeper over the bar, there was an area where it dropped into 6’ and then sloped into 13’, and with a fish rolling there on my arrival, I picked this as my spot to fish.
This time I decided not to put any bait out for a change, instead I simply just setup 3 rods with casters and sat waiting until nightfall. As the hours ticked by, I soon found myself in the midst of a thunderstorm which appeared to stop the fish from rolling.
Just before dark though, I did put out some bait in the form of a pint of casters and a pint of maggots before recasting. Throughout the night there was nothing, but first thing in the morning I spotted some fish rolling and eventually got a bite. On grabbing the rod, it felt like a good fish, it gave me the run around for a bit but I managed get it in the net and it turned out to be a 6lb+ hard fighting male tench.
Shortly afterwards, I had a short, sharp rattle on the middle rod and a few bleeps that led me to believe I’d been done over by another moody tench! I reeled in to check the rig and then casted out again.
I gave it until 2pm and with not much happening, I decided to call it a day. Having set myself the goal of catching a double-figure tench in Spring, time is running out and I only have a few more weekends left. Fingers crossed though, in the next blog I might have some good news to announce. Until then, tight lines!
