Tench Fishers fish-in Horseshoe 19th-21st May

I had been looking forward to this session for ages. The Tench Fishers is a small group of very friendly anglers who get on so well for a single species group. The web site is friendly with no bitching, and is open and informative.

The annual fish-in session was organised as per normal at the Carp Society Horseshoe lake.

The fishery is closed for us 6o anglers to concentrate on landing the giants that live in there. This year it was no exception some huge fish were landed. The average size is just stunning.

The draw is simple you take a boilie out of the bucket and it has a number 1-60. This allows number one to have the first choice of swims and then number 2 the second and so forth. I drew number 34 which meant that most of the popular swims were taken. Since I had always fished summer bay I decided to fish somewhere else. I managed to get swim 53 a double swim (2 bivi) which is normally taken by carp guy’s so you don’t get a look in.

I let the other guy’s take their cars to the car parks then I made my way to the swim on the trout bank. Dave Rogerson told me the direction to fish. I quick feel with the lead reveled a gravel area 52yds out with some slight silk weed. I didn’t want to cast much further as the wind was expected to increase in force the next day and I wanted to be accurate. 3 pints of hemp and 1pint of dead maggots was deposited into the swim before putting the tackle together. I had thought about using a method feeder rig but since it was clearish gravel I decided to use an inline rig, as shown in my rigs for tench page.

I’m not going to go into much detail because I could write what happened in the three days as a book.

I cast out at 12.15am .

Well home for 3 days swim 53

It was at 1.15pm Ihad my first run which resulted in a lovely male tench on 6lbs 30z. I quick trip to Daves swim next door had him taking a photo for me. Not the largest tench but the first of the session.

First Tench of the session 6lbs 3oz male

Then at 2.15pm I had another tench which lead me a merry dance. I was using 12lb line and my Drennan 2lb t/c distant Tench/Bream rods.

The bait was 3  plastic red maggots critically balanced and a size 10 hook.

It felt  like a really big tench, so I played it gingerly. Finally I caught a glimpse of it at it entered the shallow water. It was deep bodied but very short. When in the landing net I could see it was a male tench but huge.

On the scales Dave and I took 7lbs 13oz as the weight. A new pb male tench for me.

A new pb male tench of 7lbs 13oz Thanks Dave for a nice photo. We could spot this two tone again.

I had one more fish at 2.40pm that day and turned out to be a female of 5lbs 9oz, then they moved on and none others were caught.

At 10pm one beer with Dave and Colin McMahon and a good natter was great. It was then time for bed at 10.30pm.

I needed to be up at 4am.