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Tench 2022

Bill Walford said:
Oh well third time unlucky! Nowt, zilch not a sniff today. Back Thursday for another go šŸ˜
Anyone else out Tenching yet? Would be great to hear whatā€™s happening round the country. Keeps the forum turning over as well šŸ‘
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Blanked on 2 seperate lakes and 3 sessions so far. Wouldnt be so bad if I didn't watch the bloke opposite me pull 15 out upto 6lb in a few hours šŸ˜‚ Such is life I guess, better luck next time šŸ‘
 
Josh Porteous-Webster said:
Blanked on 2 seperate lakes and 3 sessions so far. Wouldnt be so bad if I didn't watch the bloke opposite me pull 15 out upto 6lb in a few hours šŸ˜‚ Such is life I guess, better luck next time šŸ‘
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The positive you can take from it Josh is that they are awake and feeding. Your day will come šŸ‘
 
Still planning for my first tench season, will bring both my float and feeder gear. Bait will be maggots and worm, hemp and worm fishmeal as ground bait. Canā€™t decide to go in the early morning or the dusk yet.
 
Hi all.Treated myself to a days tench fishing yesterday to a club water in north yorks which is at least an hours drive away.
A gravel pit which is local to me is now a predominantly big carp water and to even find a swim sometimes is a challenge and the tench,although becoming larger are mainly caught on big carp methods.
I last fished the lake concerned about 30yrs ago with some success with large bags of tench with the average size being around the 3lb mark,but that coincided with the start of my obsession with barbel,hence the time lapse in return visits.
I was keenly anticipating watching a red float tip dipping and swaying surrounded by bubbles in a quiet tranquil swim on the drive up.... Arriving at first light I was suprised to see 3 other cars in the car park with anglers setting up on bank, and the car park filled within a couple of hours.Quiet and tranquil it was not.However the fishing was brilliant and I must have ended up with over 100lbs of fish catching steadily throughout the day ending with a mad couple of hours towards evening when it was a bite a cast.Unfortunately not one fish was a tench.It was a mix of F1s,Ide and stockie carp between 1 and 4lbs.I had mixed feelings about the day,a good day catching fish but is reducing a lovely tench lake to another muddy,overstocked hole in the ground the future of all club waters.By the numbers fishing yesterday it appears so.
On a brighter note,the fields surrounding the lake were full of birdsong including skylarks.
Stay safe all and roll on the 16th.
 
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Back to the pit Tuesday 12thā€¦nothing, not a touch, not even a liner in eight hours !

Saturday 16th : Just home from a two day two nights session with a pal. Started fishing 7am Thursday 14th and absolutely nothing in first thirty hours. Couldnā€™t move as being Easter weekend it was chocca block with carpy types. Out of the blue on Friday at about 1:15pm a drop back which resulted in a PB equaling 8lb 14oz. Two hours later another drop back and a 3lb 6oz hit the net and then nothing, except an eel of 2-08 and a roach during the night and then Saturday morning five in an hour and a bit, 7-14, 7-02, 7-06, 6-09 and my first male of the year at 5-11 then again out of the blue as I was packing away at midday a ripping run for another female of 6-05. All in all a frustrating session but great to be still catching. Back Tuesday for a day session.
 
Never in a month of Sundays will I compete with the last post. Big tench and large numbers of tench are not a big feature of my local fishing. However, I am lucky enough to have access to a local water that's at least as good as anywhere in the area.
I've had bigger, but I was quite chuffed with fish of 5lb 13oz, 6lb 1oz (a male fish) and 6lb 11oz. Here's the biggest of the three.
170422 6lb 11oz (1).JPG
 
Chris Jones said:
Never in a month of Sundays will I compete with the last post. Big tench and large numbers of tench are not a big feature of my local fishing. However, I am lucky enough to have access to a local water that's at least as good as anywhere in the area.
I've had bigger, but I was quite chuffed with fish of 5lb 13oz, 6lb 1oz (a male fish) and 6lb 11oz. Here's the biggest of the three.
View attachment 19046
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Excellent, well done Chris. Iā€™m not trying to set up competition but a bit of activity on the forum and youā€™ve taken the bait šŸ¤£. I love reading whatā€™s going on round the country and best way to stimulate my fishing pals on BFW is to share my own exploits.

PS. Iā€™m not crowing about my catches, after all itā€™s luck what picks up the bait when itā€™s 35yds from the bank, Iā€™m happy to share the blanks as well šŸ¤Ŗ
 
Michael Weir said:
Went on my first tench session yesterday with my nephew. Had one each. Mine 3lb12 and nephew's (his 1st ever tench) 5lb 1 (photo below).
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Marvellous, what a fish for him. Hopefully heā€™ll love ā€˜em for life now šŸ‘
 
Bill Walford said:
Excellent, well done Chris. Iā€™m not trying to set up competition but a bit of activity on the forum and youā€™ve taken the bait šŸ¤£. I love reading whatā€™s going on round the country and best way to stimulate my fishing pals on BFW is to share my own exploits.

PS. Iā€™m not crowing about my catches, after all itā€™s luck what picks up the bait when itā€™s 35yds from the bank, Iā€™m happy to share the blanks as well šŸ¤Ŗ
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I wasn't trying to compete or suggest you were crowing. I was merely bemoaning being a long way up north where most species don't get quite so big.

Terry Simner said:
"6lb 1oz (a male fish) "


Well if your local fishing produces 6lb males, it must do double females I have thought Chris. Nice :D
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A few of us are wishing and hoping, but there's no sign yet. Best I've had was 7lb 15oz, but the odd fish has broken the 8lb mark. The one remarkable thing they are doing is breeding well.
 
Chris Jones said:
I wasn't trying to compete or suggest you were crowing. I was merely bemoaning being a long way up north where most species don't get quite so big.



A few of us are wishing and hoping, but there's no sign yet. Best I've had was 7lb 15oz, but the odd fish has broken the 8lb mark. The one remarkable thing they are doing is breeding well.
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Sounds a good water to have available Chris in a lovely part of the country. šŸ‘
 
Best day of the spring yesterday, twelve Tench ranging from 3-15 to 8-10 with ten of ā€˜em over 5lb. Also lost three due to hook pulls which has me thinking about the hook pattern Iā€™m using as Iā€™ve lost a few from hook pulls this year, Iā€™m not completely convinced itā€™s my hook though as one or two of the fish have had ā€œdodgyā€ mouths from where theyā€™ve been repeat captures by carp anglers using big hooks. Iā€™ll step up from a size 12 to a 10 and see how I fair! Back Thursday for another go.
 
Nice one Bill.

Sounds like great fishing. Kent is certainly the place to be for big tench these days.

I think your probably right to suspect mouth damage, we found the same thing on a weedy estate lake 15 years ago. Carp anglers were hauling tench through thick weedbeds using big carp hooks and about 20% of the tench I saw on the bank had mouth damage or varying degrees. I've never experienced so many instances of hook pull before or since.
 
Joe, Bill

Thereā€™s an article in the new Tenchfishers bulletin that talks about mouth damage and the Tench in Sywell a while back. Youā€™re both probably aware of it
 
Dave Quinn said:
Joe, Bill

Thereā€™s an article in the new Tenchfishers bulletin that talks about mouth damage and the Tench in Sywell a while back. Youā€™re both probably aware of it
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I was lucky enough to one of the first to go back to Sywell at the start of its second ā€˜goldenā€™ period (mid 80ā€™s). The fish were pristine and pushing up to 8lb and hardly anybody was there !

I fished there a bit for 2 or 3 seasons including in Springtime and the fishing was fantastic. BUT the fish were starting to deteriorate and I stopped going there at that point. The fish grew much bigger over the next few seasonsā€¦ā€¦

What caused the mouth damage is debatable and I havenā€™t seen that article. But apart from simple fishing pressure/repeat captures, 2 things happened over that time frame: we developed the short hooklink bolt rig and then the majority switched to boilies about 2 seasons later.
 
Tim Marks said:
I was lucky enough to one of the first to go back to Sywell at the start of its second ā€˜goldenā€™ period (mid 80ā€™s). The fish were pristine and pushing up to 8lb and hardly anybody was there !

I fished there a bit for 2 or 3 seasons including in Springtime and the fishing was fantastic. BUT the fish were starting to deteriorate and I stopped going there at that point. The fish grew much bigger over the next few seasonsā€¦ā€¦

What caused the mouth damage is debatable and I havenā€™t seen that article. But apart from simple fishing pressure/repeat captures, 2 things happened over that time frame: we developed the short hooklink bolt rig and then the majority switched to boilies about 2 seasons later.
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Sounds amazing. As does what theyā€™re doing there these days to get it back to its best
 
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