Bubble Burst

Well the inevitable happened, two days of moderate sunshine and the tench spawned. I guess that means my chance of a northwest double has gone for now - but there's always next year of course. First day out this week produced nothing but a large eel. No line bites, no other bites and nothing rolling. I followed this up with another two eels along with tench of 6lb 15oz and 8lb 2oz on day two. Denis couldn't make this trip but I had plenty of company as several people who have caught modest fish there (and who don't actually weigh their fish) have chosen to advertise the venue here and there. There's a race for swims now most mornings and I had people fishing either side of me.

The appearance of the eels obviously coincides with the tench having shed their spawn. Eels have a fantastic sense of smell and I don't doubt they have converged on the area from all over the lake gobbling up the tench spawn - and any maggots they happen to come across in the process. I've been avoiding baiting up with cereal feed as I don't really want to attract the bream into my swim. All I've used for feed is maggots and caster, introduced by spod but I may have to rethink this policy if the eels really become a problem. I wouldn't mind so much if they were big ones but the biggest I've had so far is only about two and a half ponds - not really specimens.

Day three was a different story. The tench had completed their nuptuals and were on the verge of a feeding frenzy. Seven fish were caught in all, six tench and a bream. The bream was first to put in an appearance, taking the bait on the first cast within just a few minutes. It weighed 9lb 8oz and fought so poorly that at times I wasn't sure I had a fish on at all. There was a lull after that but the tench came on the feed mid morning and I got bites steadily for an hour or two. I hooked eight of them in all but lost two in the very thick marginal weed. The ones I landed weighed 5lb 8oz, 5lb 15oz, 7lb 5oz, 7lb 14oz, 7lb 15oz and 8lbs exactly. All were battered but some were still carrying a bit of spawn.

Interestingly, I caught nothing on maggots, every bite was on a rig which carried two plastic casters on the hair and two real ones on the hook. What's more the majority of bites occurred within the first five minutes after a recast. Denis had remarked on this previously and it does look like the tench are homing in on the splash of the feeder. Echoes of Pavlov's dogs!

Denis joined me for the last session of the week and we both blanked. Denis hooked a fish which came unstuck almost immediately but I didn't even have a line bite. It had been a very cold night with frost forecast (frost in June!) and I can only imagine the drop in temperature coupled with early bright conditions served to put the fish down. I wasn't too bothered really, the tench are in very poor condition now and this was to be my last attempt at catching them for this year.

Next week brings the start of the river season and the opening of my bream lake. I think I can smell a blank!

Job Done!

Ok, my three months of employment has finally come to an end. Money in the bank, courtesy of the Office for National Statistics and I'm a free agent again ready to catch some fish. The job caused me to miss the end of the pike fishing season and I had to shelve any plans to make the annual pilgrimage to Scotland so the money was hard won but it did enable me to invest in a novel piece of equipment - more about that later in the season I think.

In the modern age, May herald's the start of the tench and bream fishing season for me. Previous years have seen me at a particular water in the North West where I've taken tench to over nine pounds and bream to more than twelve but I've decided a change is in order. I've never been one for sticking at the same place for year after year like some, I prefer to fish around a bit so I've moved on.

My new water is quite a big place so there's plenty of choice swim-wise but after a few days I'm beginning to understand how popular it is. Three early morning starts (very early) saw me competing for the swim I wanted and indeed I only got into it once. It wasn't easy either, I had several line bites on the first morning but didn't catch anything and then had two mornings where the bobbins didn't move at all. The fish were there alright, they taunted me by rolling and splashing in front of me but they weren't to be tempted.

There were other problems too. A layer of bottom weed carpets this lake, bistort I think, although I'm not an expert and this presents a number of problems. I started off using bolt tactics with heavy feeders and short hooklengths but soon abandoned this idea. The feeders were getting well stuck in the weed and I'm sure the baited hook was simply being buried by it. I soon changed to more traditional paternoster and running feeder rigs to combat this, hoping that the longer hooklengths would allow the bait to settle on top of the weed rather than be swamped by it.

Day four saw me arrive at dawn with some company. Denis had joined me this time and we were fortunate enough to get the swim we wanted, indeed we didn't see another angler all morning. Several nice tench rolled in front of us as we were tackling up and with heavy cloud cover and warm muggy conditions our expectation was high. We spodded in a couple of pints of maggots, cast in our loaded feeders and sat back to await developments.

It wasn't long before the action started, indeed the line bites began almost immediately and before long I had a more positive indication which saw me strike into a heavy fish. It didn't end happily however as the fish ran into thick marginal weed where it became stuck. A few moments of heaving by me on one end and the fish on the other saw the 4.12lb hooklength snap and it was gone. I replaced the hooklength with a heavier one, 5.14lb this time and recast and sure enough another run ensued. I landed this one, a nice bream of 10lbs 5oz which fought well (for a bream).


An hour passed with many line bites keeping me on the edge of my seat before another positive indication which resulted in the capture of a spirited 6lb 2oz tench. I was a very happy bunny at this point with both target species in the bag and finished off the morning with another bream which went 8lb 14oz.

That was it for my return to fishing in 2011, job done and lessons learned. I'll be after those tench and bream again next week. Denis? well he didn't have much luck I'm afraid, perhaps it'll be his turn next.

It's Tench Time

No blog entry for more than a month. Well it's not so surprising, April's always a funny time of year and I haven't fished much. A trip to Scotland didn't produce anything exciting, just small pike. I did come close to a big one when I had a six pounder grabbed by something much larger as I was bringing it to the boat but the big one let go, just leaving the jack with some pretty impressive scars. I fished that area quite intensively for some hours after that but I didn't catch the culprit. I guess it's possible that the jack was grabbed again on its return to the water and devoured in which case the big pike might not have been so interested in my baits and lures with its belly full.

This week was the start of my tench campaign for 2010. This is going to be a short campaign for sure as I have other projects in mind but I was fortunate enough to kick off with a fish, albeit a relatively small one. Denis and I got to the lake just after first light but we were disappointed to find the swims we wanted taken. No matter, it was a wednesday morning so there was plenty of space and we headed off to the opposite side of the lake. It may have been a blessing in disguise since the day was a cold one and we got a fair bit of rain thrown at us but the swims we were in were sheltered and we missed the worst of it.

It's a late spring this year after a very cold winter so heavy feeding would not be a good idea and maggots were to be the first line of attack. I fished two maggot rods, one with a simple running rig and the other with a short hooklink and heavy feeder fished semi-fixed. I don't like fishing this way to be honest, I would prefer to fish two running rigs with long drops on the bobbins so as to get early indications in the way of line bites. I can't deny though, the bolt rig setup works and is very efficient, especially in pressured waters, which this one now is!

I set up a third rod as well. This was a new rod which I built myself from a 2.75lb tc Harrison Chimera blank. I've built this rod specifically for long range bream fishing and this was to be its first outing. I rigged this to fish "method feeder" style using pineapple flavour boilies on the hook and a very stiff groundbait mix moulded around the feeder. It's easy to make a very stiff mix, just add some liquidised corn to the mix and the starch from the corn stiffens it nicely.

First bite came on the maggot bolt feeder rig. Typical sort of thing, one bleep followed by a screamer and before long I had the first tench of the season in the net, 5lb 12oz. I was a little surprised to see how much spawn the fish was carrying considering how cold the spring is, not sure how much longer it'll be holding on to it.

A while later I had a drop back bite on the method feeder rod but when I lifted the rod I failed to connect with anything - need to work on the rig a bit more I think. I finished the day with one more fish, a jack of around four pounds which took the ubiquitous slider. I'm determined to do more lure fishing this summer, it breaks the fishing up nicely when you're waiting for that one run from a big tench or majestic bream.