8th April Moor lake Great Somerford, tench at last.

I must admit last night I just threw the stuff in the garage and had a hot meal and a shower. I was tired from getting up at 5am and wasting a day on Horseshoe. Well it wasn’t wasted it just wasn’t productive.

Today I thought about a leisurely start after breakfast and tidying things up. I opted to change from my Drennan 2lb t/c bream and tench rods to a some 0.5lb fox duo rods. These little rods I use for river roaching with a quiver, but they also have a solid top which is idea for small river chubbing and close in tench feeder work.

I arrived at the lake to be greated by a few other anglers having the same idea as myself. It would seem that the tench had just started to awake. A few had been caught during the last week or two. The gravel pit is about 7 acres with a uniform depth of about 6-7 ft. It has a marginal shelf that drops of to these depths, and it’s here where the tench patrol during the summer.

So my method was to be a short helicopter rig on one rod and a method feeder on the other as a comparison. These were to be fished about 4 rod lengths out. The method mix was going to be the same as yesterday.

Moor lake in May last year.

The sun was shinning really strong but I had the good sense to take a brolly so that I had some shade. I cast out at 10.30am after saying  hello to everyone around the lake. Soon by 10.45 I had a run on the method mix rod that had the rod hooped over and the clutch ticking nicely. These soft rods are a dream to use particularly when using light hook links. Soon after giving and taking line she was ready for netting. I don’t normally weigh the fish from here but I’m being told that they are gaining in size. This was was a wonderful green and yellow bellied tench of 4lbs 14oz, which no signs at all of carrying spawn.

 I was fishing so close that I could catapult out the required hemp. As the day continued to warm the tench fed sprodically mainly on the method mix rod. Here I was using a size 14 hook and two rubber maggots tied to a hair rig.

Unusually there was no fizzing in the swim or any signs of activity, so I guess they were not fully on the feed.

Latest none adjustable chair made from wood (The real tree)

In all I managed to catch 7 tench, 5 on the method swimfeeder and 2 on the helicopter rig. Not sure how conclusive a test this is. But it’s interesting.

During the day at intervals after I cast the method and swim feeder out, a few feet down wind some rudd would put in an appearance on the surface. This I think was primarily due to me having some right old ropey maggots and casters. Then at 6pm the same thing happened then when they disappeared I would get a bite from a rudd. I can only assume that they followed the rising casters down to the source which in this case was the feeders. I had a right old 30 minutes or more and at times had a hard job to keep two rods in the water and often the a bite would come before I could clip the bobbin on.

I suppose I had 10 rudd up to about 1lb in that feeding frenzy before they cleared off.

So a good session for my second choice of lakes for my tench fishing. I have to say though if I caught an 8lb fish from this lake it would be the same as a double from Horseshoe. Think I might let Horseshoe settle down for a week or two as reading my diary tells me that the fishing didn’t take off last year until May.