TIME FOR TENCH

Having moved house i decided to have a walk round a local lake i used to fish over 10 years ago which now happens to be at the end of my road. I had a nice slow walk around one evening and the place has hardly changed, nor has the bailiff who instantly recognised me even though i,m a couple of stone heavier and have face fur which he hasn,t seen. It was quite nice catching up with him he hadn,t changed a bit. Anyway as i slowly crept into a nice overgrown corner i spied a big paint brush tail waving at me from the nearside margin. On looking closer it was clear that there was a couple of good sized tench grubbing around the roots of some reeds. That was all the incentive i needed and the next day i was in the tackle room making up some rigs to have a go for these tench before they moved off.

Due to the vegetation covering this little corner i decided to tie up some popped up artificial bait rigs. As you can see they looked the bees knees in my viewing class, ok its an empty posh pate jar. I got the rest of my gear ready  ET Sneeker rods, shimano baitrunners, 8lb Ultima flourocarbon mainline and Korda flourocarbon hooklinks as well as the usual paraphernalia, grtabbed some pellets and set of for a couple of hours after work. I used the Sneeker rods as although they are a bit heavy for tench really, they do have a nice softish action and would cope ok with any carp that might put in an appearance. Also seeing as though i would be fishing in a tight snaggy swim i didn,t want to risk teathering any fish if they got snagged in the reeds.






I had a cracking couple of hours fishing catching 3 bream to just over 4lb and a lovely tench of 4lb 12oz. And the Sneekers performed admirably giving a nice account of the fight without feeling as though they were outgunning the fish. One thing i will say though is that i won,t be using the method feeder again as the bream absolutely go crazy over it. My alarms were signalling constantly and i could see the rod tips twanging about as the bream were knocking the method ball about. I changed to small bags of pellets with the artificial corn pop ups as hook baits and still got a lot of knocks but they resulted in more hook ups, even though a few dropped off they were only small fish. I,m going to be spending a good few evenings on this water i reckon, it would be rude not too as its only a 2 min trip down the road in the car. Beats sitting in front of the tv.........



 Another little video, this time of a small bream.
My short session tackle..

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SELLING MY BOAT

Image
I,ve come to the tough decision that i have to sell one of my fishing boats as i barely use it any more and i need the space. The boat is a Shetland 535 Fast fisher 17ft glassfibre jobbie with a tuned 40hp yamaha outboard on the back. The boat itself is ready to go fishing with all steering and morse controls working fine. The gelcoat is a bit flat but sound, theres no holes or osmosis and just needs water.  The outboard is a Yamaha 40hp and was rebuilt a few years ago and has only been used for a few hours and is in immaculate condition and runs fine. Its electric start and needs an external fuel tank. As the pictures will show its immaculate. The trailer needs a little bit of work, new wheel bearings and possibly a little welding here and there. All in all its ready to go and is ideal either for sea fishing or pike fishing. I,m after £1200 which is a good price considering what i,ve seen them going for on ebay. The boat is stored near to Basildon in Essex and you c...
Read more

SMALL RIVER ROVING, RETURN

Image
At the beginning of this year i fished a small river in Essex, which i had been meaning to try for a few years, in hope of catching some nice perch and chub as i,d heard a few reports and walked the river and it looked good for both species. Luckily i did pretty good on that session and caught both my target species, and not bad sized ones too. Well last week i decided i fancied another trip there to see what else this tiny little river had to offer. My target for this short afternoon session was the perch, probably my favourite species to fish for over the past few years. Now that i know the river holds a couple of decent specimens i feel that its worth putting in the effort to see what size these sergeants actually grow too. Arriving at midday i set of on the 1.5 mile trek to a small side pool, which i had caught small roach, rudd and gudgeon from on my last trip, to tempt out a few small silvers to use as live bait on the main river. Arriving at the pool it was obvious that no one...
Read more

'RAYS' OF SUNSHINE

Image
 Lately there have been a few reports of the thornback rays showing up in the local tidal river in good numbers so I thought i,d set out to catch one. I have caught a few thornies in the past but I,m far from proficient at it, so I,ve set myself a little goal of fishing for them more over the next couple of months so that I can learn as much about them for future fishing trips. They're actually not too difficult a species to catch as they're not really rig shy and as long as a nice fresh bait is placed in front of them then you,re in with a chance. Anyways I arrived at my chosen location, after a 2 mile grueller of a walk, an hour before low water planning to fish the tide up until it was pulling too hard, making the fishing uncomfortable.  TRAPS SET As the picture shows the water here is a long way down which makes retrieving your tackle, or fish for that matter, a tricky affair. But its worth sliding down the wall and clambering over the rocks when needed as this spot is str...
Read more