Tench

After our fairly successful session at Higham Farm last year, Shane and I decided on a return trip this Spring, again for 24 hours and again targeting the resident tench. Shane had hatched a plan of attack and I liked it.  I really liked it.  This time we would fish on the Specimen Lake, which can only be fished on a 24 hour ticket.  Because of this, it tends to only attract carp anglers so the numerous other species resident in the lake only ever see the bank when they pick up a disgruntled carper’s bait!  Specimen tench and bream were definitely on the cards, plus who knows what large roach and perch could lurk in there. Besides fishing this lake, our approach was a little unorthodox too.  Rather than simply using scaled-back carp tactics, we would go armed with a couple of gallons of maggots each and fish positively by feeding aggresively – by introducing a large bed of maggots via a spomb, then topping the swims up when necessary. I chose to hair rig a mixture of buoyant Drennan imitation maggots and live maggots to create a balanced Medusa bait designed to hover just above the lake bed, …

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There are some things that as anglers we just can’t resist.  Such as an invitation to try out a neglected old farm lake “to see what’s in it”. The chances are it could be a real duffer; a puddle devoid of everything but sticklebacks and dragonfly nymphs, but there’s always that chance. That pesky chance. So upon receiving one of these extremely rare opportunities, I couldn’t refuse.  A farmer was investigating the possibility of selling the fishing rights to a couple of acre lake on his property, which had been neglected and unfished (bar the odd poacher) for years.  A quick recce was all I could fit in initially, but I spotted a few carp up to high doubles, maybe even a twenty, plus a half-decent tench hanging in the shade of a fallen tree.  I’d also spotted a lightning fast tail swirl in the margins that really shouted “pike” to me, so I made a mental note to visit properly the following spring. It was difficult to know what tackle to take with me because I wanted to get an accurate cross-section of the species present in the water, but I also hoped to catch the lakes largest residents – whatever …

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I managed to pick a couple of days break in the early-May rain, to fit in a 24-hour session with Shane Calton.  We visited Derbyshire’s Higham Farm Lakes and tackled up primarily for tench, but with the head of carp, bream and other species in there, we knew it would be difficult to target them solely. Higham is pretty local to me, so I used to fish this place quite regularly for the carp when I was 15 to 18, but I worked out that I have only been there once in the last 12 years! I was field testing a fair bit of Cyprinus night fishing gear, including a bivvy, a memory foam bedchair, a 3-5 season sleeping bag and a tackle barrow, which all performed superbly (Reviews on FishingMagic.com here). Before I arrived Shane had already landed a few bream in the 4-5lb bracket and as I was setting up he landed a tench of exactly 5lb, which was a very promising start. It was to be the last tench we had between us, but we each notched up carp overnight and I also had a bream and a strange fantail brown goldfish-cross thing, which I should have really taken …

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Late Spring, into Summer is the perfect time of year to target tench, carp, crucians and bream in stillwaters. This gives me an excuse to use one of my favourite techniques – the humble “Lift Method”. Forget fancy anti-eject combi-rigs and the like; the lift method is simplicity itself. All the terminal tackle you need is a float, a hook, a swivel and some swan shot. The principle of the lift method is to over-shot your float and fish with all of the weight laid on the bottom. The float is set slightly over depth, so that when the rod is set up on rests, the float can be made to sit upright by simply tightening the line, so you can finely adjust how much float tip is visible. When a fish takes your bait, the shot is often lifted from the lake bed, which causes your float to lift out of the water, sometimes even laying horizontal on the surface! It is this action from where the method derives its name. Very often, however, you’ll notice knocks on the float tip before it disappears, just as you would with a waggler. Either of these bite indications are positive enough …

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As Spring lethargically began to take it’s hold, my latest session had me in two minds. Should I try for some early season tench, or go for some late season pike? I opted to take tackle and bait with me to target either species. There are two different club lakes I fish, within a couple of miles of each other. One holds both tench and small pike, whilst the other holds pike of specimen proportions. I decided to head in the general direction of these lakes and see what conditions I found when I arrived. I arrived at the first venue at first light and as I approached the gate, I noticed a dark figure scurrying across a field in front of me. It was a badger! One of my favourite British mammals, and one which I have seldom seen in the wild. This sighting gave my confidence an early boost and gave me feeling that the day might turn out to be a special one. I had a good walk around the three-acre lake before I set up any tackle. It was a cold morning and it just didn’t feel right for tench fishing yet. After spooking a few …

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