Top 10 Spring Tench Fishing Tips

Tench love nothing more then feeding early in the morning, so make sure that you can get down to your chosen venue for first light, as this is the best time to catch yourself a tench. To make the most of this time, make sure you have prepared your fishing tackle before hand, so you can get your rods out as soon as possible!

Tench may not grow as large as Carp, but they are well renowned for their fighting capabilities so a 12ft Avon style fishing rod is perfect with a test curve of between 1.25lb-1.75lb, as this gives you enough power to cast distance with heavy feeders, but is forgiving enough to stop hook pulls, and when you hook a decent tench, you will know! Combined with a freespool reel in the 5000-8000 size loaded with 10lb mono line will give you a perfectly balanced set up for all tench fishing.

Tench absolutely love nothing more then cover! So keep an eye out on whatever your chosen venue, whether it be a small lake, gravel pit or even canal for anything like lily pads, weed beds or islands because it is likely there is a tench somewhere near to these. On larger gravel pits where there might not be any obvious cover above the surface, try and locate structures under the water such as marginal drop offs, bars or plateaus, as food will accumulate here and will be a natural feeding spot for the tench.

Tench absolutely love maggots, they are easy to get from your local AD store and are arguably the best bait for Tench, so its logical that a maggot feeder is absolutely devastating for Tench. In early spring, on larger lakes, the tench will most likely still be sat towards the middle of the lake in deeper water out of float fishing range, so with a feeder fishing approach you can get your rig to the fish.  Fished in line style with a short fluorocarbon hooklength creates a self hooking rig and is perfect for trying to fool big tench .

This has been one of the most popular tench baits in the last couple of years and involves threading multiple sections of worms on a hair rig to create a big obvious and active hookbait that Tench can't seem to resist. Also by using a hair rig, your fishing hook is fully exposed ensuring you have the best chance of setting the hook on the bite. This bait is even more effective in coloured water, as the sections of worm will be creating a scent trail in the water, hopefully for a big tench to find! 

To draw and hold a shoal of tench, you will need to create a carpet of bait for them to feed on, especially as the water temperature starts to increase in late April/May. A mix of small particle sized baits such as sweetcorn, hemp, micro pellets, casters and maggots is best, as tench love to feed on these baits, but as the baits are small it will keep them on your spot for longer. To get a volume of bait out quickly there is nothing better then a spod/spomb, a small/midi size is perfect and around 10-15 of these will create the perfect feeding zone!

If there is a lot of roach present in your chosen venue, then fishing maggots can be frustrating as they will rip your bait off the hook before a tench has a chance to get to it. In this instance a method feeder is a deadly alternative as combined with a small 8-10mm yellow wafter hookbait it is completely roach proof! Use with a groundbait mix such as the Sonubaits Worm Fishmeal 2kg with a mix of particles like sweetcorn, hemp and 2mm pellets. 

Although the feeder is the main go to nowadays for tench especially on larger lakes, there are plenty of situations where the presentation on a float cannot be beaten, especially smaller "Mr.Crabtree" style lakes. So never discount the float! 

For catching tench on the float there is no better tactic then the lift method, and this involves fishing with two large shot on the bottom allowing your hookbait to be completely still on the bottom, until a fish picks it up where the float will then pop up giving you an unmissable bite! 

Due to the way they feed in large shoals, there are several little giveaways that will give you a clear idea where the tench are feeding when you are fishing, whether that be small bubbles or fish rolling.

The best time to notice these little signs is for them few hours at first light in the tenchs prime feeding time. Keep an eye out on the water for patches of small bubbles with your polarised sunglasses, as you will be to clearly see when they are actively feeding on a spot! 

Once you have found your chosen spot, you want to make sure that you are always fishing in and around this spot. As tench travel in shoals, you want to create a large area for them to feed over and building up this area of bait throughout the session is key to a productive session! 

A set of distance sticks in this instance are invaluable as they will allow you to accurately measure the distance you are fishing, and if you mark the line either with a line marker or a small bit of marker elastic you will always be able to go back to your distance sticks for the next cast and clip your line at the same distance!