And We've Off

Belated birthday fishing session yesterday, and a return to to my challenging tench water for another session after this elusive species.
Woke up nice and early, but didn't / couldn't get up, the mojo for tench is waning after a high number of session without a sniff of one. None of my tench session have been a blank, with plentiful amounts of bream and roach to save me blanking, but when your after tench, everything else can be a disappointment.

Don't get me wrong, I love my bream and roach fishing, but my mind has been set in targeting a PB tench from this water where they grow to double figures.

I left the house with the rods after the usual jobs of feeding animals etc, so with a cuppa in hand I set about the task of driving to the lake. Now normally this would be eventful and I could tell you about the wonders of the wildlife on route, not today. Today it was all in a blur and I was soon parked up think I had, had a senior moment and couldn't remember the journey. Ho hum.

After waking up again, the first challenge of the day, put the new barrow together. This is one of these TFG Blazer barrow's (birthday present from the wife). 

Decided that with all the bait etc I'm now carrying for a session that I need to get a load shifter or not take as much stuff. A barrow came out the winner, as I can take the quantity of bait I need without damaging my back.

Te barrow was soon loaded and off I went pushing it along over the bridge, throw the meadow and to the lake. Luckily the cold gloomy day had put every one off the idea of fishing and I had the place to myself. This made it easier to decided which swim to setup on. The swim is nicely placed to fish a number of different features and normally it is taken up with a carper.

Soon the rods were out, method feeder, maggot feeder and marginal bolt rigged boilie. The boilie was a new type that I was trying out for a manufacturer, I had hopes that something large would decide it needed a fast food snack and snaffle it. Ten tennis ball sized balls of ground bait were catapulted out into grazing area.

The other two rods were baited with red maggot and these soon got the attention of the resident roach shoals. The method feeder was soon away and a roach was in the hand. The nice thing about the roach in this water is that the average size is 8-10oz with a few 1lb fish making an appearance.

The "rig" was soon away too and a perch was hooked, again another species that seem to grow big n this water, and maybe another species to target in the autumn.

Both rods were rebaited and recast out to the baited area and it wasn't long before more 8-10oz roach were landed. The carp on the far side were crashing about and grabbed my attention with their antics.

By 9am, I had landed about a half a dozen roach and then it when quiet, a few more balls of ground bait were catapulted out to liven things up and soon the bite started again.

The method feeder bobbin then twitch, before climbing to the rod ring and the bait runner started to sing, this wasn't a roach. The rod hooped over and by the feel of it, a better fish was hooked. It was either a small carp or a tench. The latter was what I was hoping for.

After a spirited fight in which included a could of short runs, a tench tail broke the surface and my heart started to beat faster.

The tench was soon over the net and it was mine. Off the mark at last. It was soon unhooked and weight 5lb 14oz with the sling, so that's a health 5lb 6oz tench to get the campaign going.

Rod was soon rebaited and cast out and the roach were back on the bait. By the end of the session I must have had fifteen plus 8-10oz roach and one of nearly a pound.

The marginal rod didn't get a look in until last knockings, whereby the alarm was screaming, but the fish, which was likely to be one of the carp broke the 8lb hook link.

Only other large species I had was a single male bream of about 4lb, its head was cover in the white tubercles, so spawning was probably on there mind.

May as many other bloggers have said is the costed since year dot, and the tench fishing have mostly been awful. We have all struggled for tench, but with a warming wind set to blow through June, I hopin to catch a few more before I start fishing the rivers again.

TL