First tench session of the year guiding Luke

Luke had been wanting to catch a few good tench as he had not fished for them before. So we sorted out a date and a venue. The gravel pit we wanted to fish produces plenty of tench up to about 7lbs. I guided on there last year and has some great catches. The weather during the previous week had been beautiful and warm at 19c. This should have got the tench mooching around. Although the temperature for the day was going to be half of what it had been over the last week.

We arrived at 6am just after first light. The wind was blowing from the west but wasn’t a problem. We were going to use a method feeder and plastic casters on one rod and inline feeder and plastic maggots on the other.

First though I showed Luke how to use the feature finding rod. How to find the depth and see where the depth changed. Then it was finding a gravel spot and feeling the lead going tinc tinc across the gravel. Or the slow pull around of the rod when going into weed. Then it was how to clip up with the spomb and rods to feed and place the rig on the same spot.

So by the time we did all of this it was 7.30am before the rods were cast out.  Then it was recasting every 20 mins or so. It poured with rain for about 30 mins wso we were pleased we bought along the umbrella’s. And it was cooler than the previous day.

9am the caster rod was away and Luke lifted into a tench. This fish fought really well and in the crystal clear lake every twist and turn of the tench could be seen close in. It looked like a good male fish. I was so happy that they were feeding.

Luke did a great job in landing the fish.

Luke with a 4lbs 12oz tench

So a new pb for Luke and he was a happy bunny. We celebrated with a hot cross bun.

Out went the rods again and at 10.30am the maggot inline feeder rig was off and again he lifted into a smaller fish. This fish though didn’t stay on as the hook pulled out.

Then another take at 1pm resulted in a hook pull close in. It looked a better fish too. We realised that the hook pulls were down to trying to bully them into the net too soon. So we agreed on the next fish to slacken off when playing the fish close in. There were no snags so there was no reason to bully them.

Sure enough another bite came along that tore line off the reel. Luke lifted into the fish and started to play it. This fish wasn’t huge but still put up a spirited fight.

Luke with a nice tench

Then the duck life began to dive down on the baits and I was expecting to catch one at any minute. We had a few tentative pulls from the birds. Sometimes they wouldn’t dive but just kept looking into the lake. This normally indicates that there are tench feeding in the swim.

At one point during this lull one of the rods roared off again and Luke was into another tench. Again not huge but still a great scrap. We had been told that the tench were feeding later during the day and evenings was the best times.

Nice tench for Luke

Unfortunately Luke had to be away early. Still with 3 nice tench plus a couple of near misses where the hook pulled out he was unlucky. So at 5pm he left, however I carried on for a couple of hours and was rewarded with 4 more tench to 5lbs 4oz. I’m sure he will stay late next time.

Nice 5lbs 4oz tench

It was wonderful to be back on the lake side again. However I’m looking forward to getting my tench campaign under way.

This week I’m just putting the final plans into place for the Tench Fishers national fish-in at Horseshoe lake during May 15-17th. Everyone is paid up and the itinerary is being completed. There is even a competition between the Tench Fishers and Korum and other Sponsors. It’s never easy organising these events however the days themselves are great fun with like minded people.

Happy days