Two doubles in big tench hit

Many anglers will have hung up their tench rods for the year, but Tom Allen proved they may well be premature in doing so with the capture of five specimens including a brace of doubles.

During a session at the 65-acre Haversham Sailing Club the Newport Pagnall-based rod landed fish of 10lb 8oz, 10lb, 9lb 8oz, 8lb 7oz and 6lb 5oz in the space of eight hours.

Targeting a an area of light silt next to a thick weed bed Tom baited up with around a kilo of Sticky Krill boilies and offered 16mm hookbaits over the top.

“I’ve fished the lake for the last three and a half years for the carp and to say it’s tricky is an understatement,” he told Angling Times. “To give you an idea, until three weeks ago I had not caught one! I did have a lake record bream of 18lb last year as well as a tench of 9lb 7oz which made up for all the blanks.

“In the past three weekends the lake has repaid me for my persistence and I have now had 22 carp. But it’s my latest session that I won’t forget in a long time, landing five good tench, including three new personal bests, in a short space of time.”

All of Tom’s fish were beaten with rigs comprising 15lb Sufix Stealth Skin hooklinks and size 8 Gardner Talon Tip hooks on running rigs with 3oz leads.

“I had to wade 20 yards to land each fish safely with the aid of my brilliant wife who helped me put my waders on on each occasion – even for the 3am fish!

“The length of the biggest three tench was unreal, I can’t imagine what they would have weighed pre-spawning. Some carp anglers see tench as a nuisance species but I love them and never grumble when they come along.”

Double figure tench for perch record holder

PERCH record holder Neill Stephen banked his biggest tench of the year when he slipped the net under this mint-conditioned 10lb 11oz specimen.

The former Drennan Cup Champion from North West London had to make a late start to his tench campaign this season after breaking his arm in May, but he certainly made up for lost time when he visited a tough gravel pit in the Home Counties.

After introducing two buckets of hempseed, he fished popped-up red maggots on a 15lb braided hooklink and 12lb mainline over the top to tempt the specimen that was backed up with another fish weighing 7lb 8oz.

Double figure tench on the Method

“The way my fishing’s been going I think I’d better go out and buy a lottery ticket.”

These were the words of Phil Spinks who, just a week after banking one of the country’s biggest carp at a weight of 52lb on light tench gear, landed one of his intended species - this impressive 10lb 4oz specimen.

A prolific two-hour feeding spell was all that the Korum consultant  needed to get the better of eight fish that came from his local Lenwade Charity Lake in Norfolk, the same venue that produced the huge mirror known as Babyface seven days earlier.

This time round Phil headed to the opposite end of the lake where there’s much more weed present and put out a bed of maggots, casters, hemp and pellets over a clear spot at 55 yards with a small spod.

Over the top of this he cast a method feeder rig constructed with a Korum Dura-Method and a short 3ins Xpert Power Braid hooklink attached to a size 12 Xpert Specimen hook baited with three hair-rigged fake maggots.

He spent the night behind silent bite alarms, but at first light the fish started fizzing over his baited area.

“I was beginning to get a bit worried that I hadn’t had a bite as they were obviously feeding hard,” Phil said. “I kept recasting every 15 minutes or so and at 7am my alarm finally burst in to life. Over the next couple of hours I went on to land seven more tench, including the 10lb 4oz specimen, and a number of roach to over 2lb.

“There’s no doubt that this is the rig of the moment and the beauty of it is that anyone can use with complete confidence – it’s so versatile at a whole host of different venues.

“I visiting the River Trent for the first time soon to have a go for the barbel so hopefully my purple patch will continue,” he added.

A new tench pb in 3 weeks on the Bawburgh lakes

THE phrase ‘just like buses’ certainly rang true for Steve Nunn, who just three weeks after catching his first double figure tench struck gold once again with this personal best specimen of 12lb.

The Norfolk-based all-rounder has been concentrating his efforts on the Bawburgh Lakes complex and he hit the jackpot when he found a clear spot between two weed beds at around 50 yards range.

After introducing a bed of hemp, casters and maggots, Steve cast out straight lead set-ups baited with three hair-rigged imitation casters on size 14 hooks and this was enough to produce two bites, his other tench weighing around 6lb.

“I started fish Bawburgh last year and If someone had told me that I’d have two doubles to my name by the end of June then I would have just laughed,” Steve told Angling Times.

“It was clear that that I’d hooked a really big fish, but I was in sheer disbelief when the needle of the scales flicked around to 12lb. I even had to call my mate who brought two other sets of scales down just to check that it was the weight.”

Biggest tench brace of 2013

OVER a decade of hard work and dedication paid off for Stewart Moss when he banked the biggest tench brace of 2013 with these huge fish topping the scales at 11lb 3oz and 9lb 15oz.

After arriving at a local Oxfordshire gravel pit to find that all of the best swims were already taken, he decided to target an un-favoured, featureless area that was choked with thick weed rising over 3 feet off the lakebed.

While many anglers might have been put off by such conditions, Stewart spent the next two hours out in a boat hauling up huge amounts of weed to clear a spot big enough to accommodate his two maggot feeder rigs.

After finally setting his trap over the top of a bed of hemp the Drennan International employee was woken at 4.45am by a screaming take that ended in the capture of a fish that was just 1oz short of the double figure mark – a target he’d been trying to reach for years.

But just a few minutes after re-casting his helicopter rig - made from 10lb mainline, an ESP Soft Ghost fluorocarbon hooklink and a size 14 hook - he connected with his new personal best.

“I must admit that I almost felt like going home as the last thing I really wanted to be doing after work on Friday was getting soaked head to toe while spending hours raking out seemingly endless piles of weed,” Stewart told Angling Times.

“But all of my hard work not only cleared a spot for me but it created huge clouds of silt to puff up off the bottom, which I thought would attract any fish that were pushing their way through the maze of weed.”

Stewart’s hookbait consisted of three hair-rigged imitation casters and two live maggots soaked in Nash strawberry flavouring directly on the hook.

“I put a lot of hard work and effort into my fishing and I’ve had my fair share of hard-times and many blanks sessions. The fact that it’s taken me this long to finally achieve my goal makes this capture taste all the more sweeter,” he added.
 

Two bests in one session

ADRIAN Eves’ first session of the year targeting bream and tench turned into a real red letter trip during which he landed double figure examples of both species.

Arriving at a southern stillwater which he has been focusing his attentions on for the past four years, he found the lake much quieter than he’d been expecting and was able to drop in to one of his favourite swims at the shallower end.

“I knew there was a very good transitional area where the soft silt moves on to hard silt or clay and then on to a small gravel strip,” said the Fox and Dynamite Baits consultant.

“With several years’ experience of this extremely difficult water I felt that too much bait would be a mistake, so I just put out a small bed of 6mm betaine pellets mixed with krill groundbait, maggots and sweetcorn.”

With three rods cast over the top he received his first take towards the end of the first night when a 10lb 6oz tench picked up his two pieces of hair-rigged corn mounted on a size 10 Fox Kuro S2 hook and a 5ins Coretex hooklink.

“If I had gone home with just this fish I’d have been delighted. The very next morning, however, I had a much slower take and this time it was a huge male bream of exactly 15lb. It was in prime pre-spawning condition and even put up a fight.”

This time it was a bunch of maggots fished on a size 12 maggot clip and a small mesh PVA bag filled with maggots and a few pellets did the business for Adrian.

“Amazingly, on the third and final morning I had the same tench again! This time I just unhooked it in the margins, before ending the trip with a 22lb common. It could hardly have been a better session and after some of the gruelling visits I’ve had over the last four years it was great to be rewarded with two species at very big weights.”

Big tench galore

THIS 11lb tench was the highlight of a prolific week for the species which saw a string of double figure specimens hit the bank.

Due to the coldest spring for 30-years, tench at stillwaters across the UK have been slow to start their traditional early season feeding patterns, but Norfolk’s Christian Hodgkinson took advantage of a sudden upsurge in sport caused by rising water temperatures.

The landlord of the Fat Cat and Canary public house in Norwich struck gold during a 48 hour session at a local gravel pit after feeding two spots – one at 20 yards and the other at 70 yards – with a generous helping of hemp, maggots and casters.

It was the closer of the two that produced his first of four fish which tipped the scales at 8lb 4oz. His next bite then saw him connect with his second biggest ever tench after it picked up his fake caster hookbait mounted on a size 10 Fox hook and braided hooklink in conjunction with a simple inline lead setup.

“The tench fishing has been very slow to get going so far this year, but this is a really huge fish considering they haven’t really been feeding hard. It could easily be a high twelve later in the season,” Christian told Angling Times.

A bream fishing session threw up a welcome surprise in the shape of a huge 10lb 3oz tench for Darryn Stolworthy.

The Angling Direct-backed rod was also fishing a local Norfolk gravel pit and cast imitation corn hookbaits to a baited area at 100 yards. He also backed his specimen up with a second fish of 9lb 6oz.

He said: “When you’re fishing over big beds of particles with corn you’ve always got the chance of catching both bream and tench, but I didn’t expect to land a tench of this size. It was certainly a welcome surprise as I didn’t land any bream.”

Richworth Linear Fisheries in Oxfordshire is without one of the best day-ticket specimen complexes in the country – a fact further proved by Dai Gribble when he made an impressive six-fish catch topped by a tench of 10lb 1oz.

Targeting Hardwick Lake on the prolific venue, the Staffordshire-based Korum consultant fished just 20 yards from his own bank and also landed a personal best male fish weighing 9lb 2oz and four others to 7lb 1oz.

Popped-up imitation maggots and 12mm Sonu Baits Oozing Tutti Frutti boilies fished alongside inline maggot feeders proved successful for Dai.

“I used a Spomb to introduce a bed of dead maggots and 2mm pellets, but I use around three different varieties which break down at different times which I’m convinced really makes a difference,” he said.

He beat all of his fish with 10lb mainline, size 12 hooks and hooklinks constructed with 8lb line.

100lb of tench on maggot feeder tactics

ANDY Loble was left exhausted on his first tench session of the year after netting over 100lb of specimens, with this cracking 7lb 6oz example of the species was the highlight of a 16 fish catch from a small weedy gravel pit in Chichester.

The 32-year-old’s haul, which included five fish over 7lb and five of 6lb-plus, were all caught on popped-up artificial corn hookbaits tipped with three maggots over two prebaited areas.

Fishing one rod out in open water over a patch of light weed and the other three rod lengths out on the bottom of the marginal shelf, the Cambridgeshire-based environmental consultant kicked off the session with the introduction of 10 Spombs full of Hinders bloodworm and Little Gemz pellets, krill and shrimp meal plus CC Moore bloodworm glug and then kept the swim topped up with tumeric flavoured maggots, hemp and sweetcorn.

“It didn’t take long for the fish to move in and they made their presence very obvious with fizzing and rolling over both spots,” Andy told Angling Times.

“My first tench weighed 7lb 4oz and the bites were certainly not slow or shy.  I continued to catch until just after dark when I started to get pestered by eels so reeled in until first thing in the morning.  In total I only fished for 10 hours during the trip.

“The runs were frantic - there was a spell where it was difficult to keep both rods in the water at the same time. It was a cracking first session and has given me the buzz to have a proper go for a double figure tench. My current personal best is 9lb 14oz and I’ve held it for too long. I will be giving this venue another try and a few other waters a go to try and achieve this target,” he added.

Andy used 10lb Ultima Power Carp mainline, a 2ft leadcore leader with a Drennan inline maggot feeder threaded on and a 10lb hooklink attached to a barbless size 10 Drennan Barbel hook.

10lb tench on just a pint of maggots

CATCHING big tench at this time of year is often associated with the introduction of big beds of bait, but Keith Cracknell proved minimal feed can be just as effective with the capture of this 10lb 6oz specimen.

With those around him using large amounts of particles, the Norfolk-based all-rounder kicked off his 48-hour session on a local gravel pit with just a pint of maggots and a sprinkling of hemp and pellets.

It was a tactic, coupled with the regular recasting of in-line feeders filled with red grubs, that paid dividends on the first morning of his visit as he banked two male tench topping the scales at 8lb 6oz and 7lb.

Thinking that the fish had moved out of his swim, he was just packing away his gear when his hair-rigged caster hookbait was picked up by his first double figure tench of 2013.

“Some anglers just get really carried away and there were some lads that were firing spod after spod out. I knew that wasn’t going to be the way forward at a lake that’s 16 feet deep in places and was only just beginning to warm up,” Keith told Angling Times.

“I only wanted enough bait out there to stop a fish and keep it occupied for a short while, but not fill it up.

“This tench had one of the biggest frames I’ve seen but was really empty - there’s no doubt that it will be over 12lb come June.”

Keith used 2oz feeders with short, 12lb braided hooklinks and size 12 hooks.

Tench campaign off to a flyer

DESPITE the freezing temperatures, former Drennan Cup holder Ted Bryan has already got his 2013 tench campaign underway with the capture of this 9lb 10oz specimen.

The Sydenham, London-based big fish hunter spent two days on a southern stillwater and kicked off his session by introducing 10 spods of maggots, pellets and boilies at 60 yards.

All of his rods were baited with 10mm Nash boilies and it didn’t take long for the resident tench to find his carpet of feed as he banked four fish to 8lb before hooking into the biggest of the trip.

“Although it’s been a bit too cold for targeting this species it just goes to show that if you’re willing to put the effort in, it’s still possible to overcome the conditions and come up with the goods,” said Ted.

Ted Bryan banks winter tench brace

Former Drennan Cup winner Ted Bryan took the unusual step of fishing for tench in the middle of winter and it proved to be a worthwhile session when he netted this 9lb 12oz specimen from a southern stillwater.

The Sydenham, London, based ace turned his attentions to tench in his quest for an elusive specimen and fed several large balls of NashBait Fish Frenzy Monster Crab and Shellfish groundbait laced with freebies into a deep spot close to an island before three rods baited with a variety of offerings were presented over the top.

A long lull in sport occurred before the barren spell was broken when a 7lb 12oz tench fell for a 10mm Amber Strawberry pop-up.

The highlight of the outing came shortly afterwards though, with the big male fish falling for the same approach.

“I knew it was going to be hard but the mild temperatures gave me confidence I would succeed. Using three rods with different baits definitely increased my chances of success,” explained Ted, who used 10lb mainline and a size 10 hook.