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!st Tench

Graham Elliott said:
Joe, I think it's more the case that tench groups do circuits of the water.

A couple of places I know you could almost set your watch by them.

Over the last couple of weeks I have had the same as you up to 3 fish then few hours of slow fishing
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This makes a lot of sense Graham, I’m glad you’ve confirmed it as I often wondered why the random spikes were happening. On my last tench session I had 4 in an hour then not another touch for at least another 3-4 hours. I thought it was something I’d done wrong or perhaps a big pike had been disturbing them. If they are one for doing the rounds and moving on then I guess it makes sense to possibly move when the swim goes dead to get the best sport out of the day??? Nice information cheers.
 
Richard Isaacs said:
This makes a lot of sense Graham, I’m glad you’ve confirmed it as I often wondered why the random spikes were happening. On my last tench session I had 4 in an hour then not another touch for at least another 3-4 hours. I thought it was something I’d done wrong or perhaps a big pike had been disturbing them. If they are one for doing the rounds and moving on then I guess it makes sense to possibly move when the swim goes dead to get the best sport out of the day??? Nice information cheers.
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What time of day are you mainly fishing Richard?

The water I’ve been fishing the last 4 seasons seems to go dead between 1pm and 5pm. The exception is warm overcast days with a decent ripple on and they can be caught all day, but blue skies and flat calm other hand and I may as well just bring the rods in and have a kip. Complete waste of time.
 
And the strange thing is, IMO more bait on the bottom does not seem to hold them in the swim much if any longer.

The other thing I can offer, in general, is they don't like loose feed on their heads.

So unlike other fish our tincas. But that red eye is addictive. Probably another 3 - 5weeks or so until they think of spawning.
 
Joe Winstanley said:
What time of day are you mainly fishing Richard?

The water I’ve been fishing the last 4 seasons seems to go dead between 1pm and 5pm. The exception is warm overcast days with a decent ripple on and they can be caught all day, but blue skies and flat calm other hand and I may as well just bring the rods in and have a kip. Complete waste of time.
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Certainly I’ve noticed in late afternoon that it can go very quiet. The water I fish isn’t particularly deep with a range from 4-6feet been quite average through out. Yes the overcast sky’s make a big difference but then I don’t know of many course species that I target that particularly thrive on a bright sunny day (I’m not interested in carp)
I only loose feed if I’m fishing at close range with a float and I haven’t noticed any detrimental effects from doing this but then I never overfeed particularly on still waters for anything. I find that’s the ultimate kiss of death.
ive been doing it most successfully with an inline cage feeder. Ground bait plugged at both ends with a few bits of corn in the middle. 1 piece of plastic corn on a hair rig around 4 inches long and it’s been working well at 15-25 yards. I’ve swapped a single quiver rod now and I’m actually enjoying the sport. They go really well on soft rods.
 
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Hi, beat my pb yesterday with a 7lb13. Had 2 hookpulls on 14's (think I need to go bigger). Had a hook knot give. First time I can remember a palomer giving. Also lost a carp at the net. Still enjoyed myself plenty going on.
 
Some fantastic tincas being caught, well done to all.
My usual closed season foray onto the park lakes for Tinca just hasnt taken off yet. Alot of pressure from the carpers combined with too many cold nights has had me accumulating nigh on 100 hours of blanks!

I did have one session were i caught last month after a few warm days in a row. Caught a small tench on method/hair rigged fake maggots after an hour, this is it I thought..next two pull rounds were Bream, pb bream mind you..

Bream pb of 8lb 6oz is creeping closer to my tench Pb of 8lb 8oz.

Weathers got a bit better this week so may spend a couple days at it again.
 

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Headed to the park lake again this morning with a pint pf leftover casters from my a &c canal session on friday. Only had a few hours so seemed like a good opportunity to try a new tactic to combat the weed/hook pulls. If it fails no time or bait wasted. I decided a helicopter rig would allow me to fish slack line and have the bait more likely to lay on top of the weed. Its 2-3ft deep but at least a ft of weed.

Got there for 9, needed to be back for 1. Mixed up half a bucket of groundbait, caster and corn then spent the first hour clearing a spot out in open water by dragging an empty cage feeder over it and then putting 10 big feeders of the mix in. Fishing 3 maggots and 1 fake on a size 12 guru mwg.

First put in I had knocks immediately which turned into a wrap around bite after 5 minutes. First tinca landed, next cast and pretty much same again.
Bites then dried up so i put a couple more feeders in and had another storming bite which unfortunately came off. Couple more feeders in and was into another tench within 10 minutes, phew they hadnt disappeared. Then it went dead for an hour so tried corn and had a bream almost immediately.

Not bad for 3 hrs fishing in total and certainly makes up for all the blanks.
 

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At last the cold weather has gone and the tench were very active this morning, showing allover the swim, just a couple of knocks, then 11.30 a solid bite, great scrap and a superb 9lb 5oz male, 15 minutes later, an 8lb 14 oz female followed by a 4lb 14oz little un, and that was it. So nice to catch a few after the weeks of nothing, especially when they are quality fish.
 
I did a night session with my brother in law on Friday and we had a good session and banked afew but we also dropped afew which I can only put down to the lack of shock absorber characteristics in the very short rigs, the feeder being very close to the fish during the fight and the fact they are quite an iratic fish that make fast sudden direction changes.

I’ve made up a couple of inline feeders that I hope might resolve the problem. I’ve gone to 5” hook links rather than 4” but the feeder link itself I’ve used doubled up 14lb powergum to act as a shock absorber at close quarters and hopefully stop them being knocked off so easily.
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Interesting Richard.
I have been suffering on a hard deeper lake where the short rig and heli system quite frankly are not working. A few light knocks and not the type of proper rod bending bites I always experience on shallower ones. Been a very strange couple of long sessions with one fish from 12 indications.

I have come to the conclusion that the fish are simply head down and gently eating the free food and dropping anything with any resistance.

BTW they have no competition apart from Carp. That's important IMO with regard to the above.

Strangely enough, previous visits a few years ago success came with a standard running rig and z lead over some loose feed. That's what I will try again Wednesday if I get out.
 
Peter Littleworth said:
At last the cold weather has gone and the tench were very active this morning, showing allover the swim, just a couple of knocks, then 11.30 a solid bite, great scrap and a superb 9lb 5oz male, 15 minutes later, an 8lb 14 oz female followed by a 4lb 14oz little un, and that was it. So nice to catch a few after the weeks of nothing, especially when they are quality fish.
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Nice one Peter. Lovely brace of fish, a 9lb male is very special tench indeed. I bet that pulled back a bit. Would love to catch one!
 
Richard Isaacs said:
I did a night session with my brother in law on Friday and we had a good session and banked afew but we also dropped afew which I can only put down to the lack of shock absorber characteristics in the very short rigs, the feeder being very close to the fish during the fight and the fact they are quite an iratic fish that make fast sudden direction changes.

I’ve made up a couple of inline feeders that I hope might resolve the problem. I’ve gone to 5” hook links rather than 4” but the feeder link itself I’ve used doubled up 14lb powergum to act as a shock absorber at close quarters and hopefully stop them being knocked off so easily. View attachment 15272
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Let us know how you get on Richard. I've used 18" of 14lb powergum (the ESP stuff), tied between a swivel connected to the mainline down to a 40g blackcap. 3-4" hooklength fished helicopter style above the blackcap. Worked ok, had some average tench on it. I did have a couple of missed runs which made me wonder if the powergum was bouncing the hook out? Also didn't seem ideal for accurate casting beyond medium range.

I know of an angler who landed a near 30lb carp on the same rig while fishing for roach, his hooklength was only 4lb!! So no doubting the shock absorbency of the powergum.
 
Graham Elliott said:
Interesting Richard.
I have been suffering on a hard deeper lake where the short rig and heli system quite frankly are not working. A few light knocks and not the type of proper rod bending bites I always experience on shallower ones. Been a very strange couple of long sessions with one fish from 12 indications.

I have come to the conclusion that the fish are simply head down and gently eating the free food and dropping anything with any resistance.

BTW they have no competition apart from Carp. That's important IMO with regard to the above.

Strangely enough, previous visits a few years ago success came with a standard running rig and z lead over some loose feed. That's what I will try again Wednesday if I get out.
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Sounds a very different type of water to the one I’m enjoying at the moment.
this lake is absolutely rammed to the nines with Rudd. The competition to get to food is extremely high with bites and indications all day. Plastic baits or boilies are the only option. Short rigs inline with the feeder seem to work well but my landing rate is around 2/3 and I’m wondering if this little experiment with the short power gum link may improve that. Things just seem a bit rigid and I’m bumping the odd one or two. I’ll let you know this week if it’s a good move or a disaster
 
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