Bradley’s Tench fishers fish-in June 2013

Time does fly by as they say. I’ve had 10 days now tench fishing without a bite. It’s not a very enjoyable experience. However when you are fishing difficult large waters it’s sometimes like this. There must be an abundance of natural food that they are feeding on somewhere on the lake. A few have been caught but nothing like the numbers that should be coming out. I believe that we are still 3 weeks behind where we should be for this time of year because of the cold spring.

The time had arrived for the Tench Fishers Fish-in on Bradley’s lake. There were going to be 25 of us fishing the north banks. Now with the wind blowing a gale into the bay it looked to be very good conditions.

Methods were to be caster and method feeder and swim feeder both with plastic maggots and casters. These do work very well on many waters. The reason that plastic is used is because the lake contains many crayfish and they can be troublesome at times.

Arriving late on Thursday afternoon I settled in a swim on the point as several anglers had selected some swims in the bay and I just fancied being away from the crowded areas.

During the evening and night nothing was caught from my area. One 6lber caught from the bay area by Colin at 7pm and that was it.

8am and the remaining anglers turned up and settled into their swims. Conditions were still perfect a good strong wind and relative mild with plenty of cloud cover.

Pete Carmichael came and settled next to me on the point. Rob another tench fisher settled just around the corner.

As they carried their gear from the car to the swims I put a brew on as they travelled through most of the night to get there and I was sure they needed it.

Nothing much happened even though I had put out a couple of pints of dead red maggots, together with the same amount of hemp. I was fishing just past a weed bed thinking that the tench would patrol along the edge of it.

At 11.30 the indicator raced to the rod and stayed there. I lifted into a good tench that fought well enough. Pete was dozing while I played and landed the tench. However he awoke and took a few photo’s of the fish. With such little action I’ve had over the last 10 days of fishing we laughed as I said I almost had to ask him what I needed to do next when the alarm sounded a bite.

Rob came and had a look too at the tench. 5lbs 4oz in weight it was at least a start.

Nothing much happened for the remainder of the day other than a trip to the fish and chip shop for supper. I did manage to snag the rods twice during the last cast of the evening. I’m unsure what had happened as I had clipped up and cast to the area for 36 hrs without a problem.

I cast out as it got dark with the same end rigs.

At 2.30am just as the light was growing in the eastern sky I had a take on the maggot feeder rod. Again lifting into the tench had me playing a fish that initially was weeded. This fought well and kited around to the right and I was worried that it would cross Pete’s lines. However I soon had it guided back into the area in front of me. Soon it was landed and weighed in at 6lbs 3oz. She was empty of spawn unlike the smaller one I had caught the previous day. Just as I was wondering whether to set up the camera, Pete came out from his bivvi to take a pee and was startled to see me with the tench. Therefore Pete took a couple of shots just before I slipped her back.

After recasting again I returned to bed.

The wind started to worsen and at times I thought the bivvi would take off. Things just didn’t seem right we saw no tench rolling or much other fish activity. It was gruel going!

4pm came on the Saturday and we gathered for the BBQ. The consensus was that the tench were just not feeding or were in a different part of the lake. We all agreed that the weather conditions were spot on for the fish-in.

Lee did a brilliant job of cooking the food while we had a beer or two while we waited.

It was great to meet new people and good to chat to others who I had not met for some time.

Colin took the normal group photo after 2.5hrs of chatting eating and we returned to our swims. It was Micks birthday the next day so we toasted him…….not on the BBQ you fools I said.

The lack of activity continued as we all bemoaned the fact that conditions were perfect.The night was quite with the winds dying down a little. Again we awoke to perfect dawn but still no tench rolled. Whilst Pete and I were chatting at about 10am a tench rolled in his swim and over his bait. So our enthusiasm renewed.

Then shortly after he had a great take and lifted into a tench which fought well and took him left down the bank. As it moved down so did I with the landing net. As it came close I could see it was a decent tench and thinking well done Pete.

On the scales it went 7lbs 10oz. However it had a black growth on one side and other black marks on the other side. It wasn’t the prettiest of fish but still a tench.

The tench didn’t look happy unlike Pete.

Most of the other tench fishers had by this time left as the forecast was for rain. Sure enough at about noon the rain started to fall. Pete had practically packed away just before the rain arrived so he was lucky. I stayed for another hour or so hoping that I could bag another.

Compared to last year when we caught some stunning fish, this year 7 tench between 25 anglers was not the best of fish-ins. However this is just a blip and can happen. I’m sure though some good fish will be caught soon.

 

Thanks to Dave Rogerson for organising the event and I’m positive that most of us will be back next year. Thanks again Dave.