I eventually arrived at the lake in the late afternoon to
find I had the place to myself. After a
quick recce I set up in a swim I’d never fished before. I’d chickened out and had the wind on my back,
would I live to regret it? The swim
looked nice with lilies on both sides and a quick plumb around revealed about
five feet of water. By 1600 I was
fishing with two rods; a feeder drooped alongside lilies about ten yards away
on the right and a float rig fished close to the pads on the left. Groundbait was the Expo mix again and on the
hooks I fished sweetcorn as I didn’t want too much bother from small fish.
There was still a bit of drizzle in the wind so I had to
break out the oval brolly for only the second time since I’ve had it. The rain soon fizzled out but I was glad of
the shelter from the still fresh wind. I’d packed the radio and my mind was
absorbed in the cricket so time passed quickly but there was no sign of any
fishy activity. I was beginning to wish
I’d brought some maggots to save the blank at least. I kept dropping the feeder
on the spot every half hour or so and fed a small ball of groundbait with every
cast on the float rod. Float fishing
should be a delicate business with light, carefully balanced tackle but my set
up bears little resemblance to this. I
use an eleven foot pellet waggler rod sold by Middy. A small Shimano reel with 8lbs line straight
through to a large size 16 Matrix feeder rigger hook. Float is usually some sort of waggler, locked
with float rubbers. Random bunches of shot below it with a no. 6 about 9” from
the hook. Nothing subtle about any of
that but there is no point hooking a fish and losing it in the weed.
Around 1800 a large Tench rolled out in open water so I
repositioned the feeder for a while but I began to see signs of a fish in the
areas I’d baited. I was in two minds; do
I stick to my original plan or fish where the Tench had rolled? An old friend wandered round for a chat and
he advised me to stick to plan A. As the
light began to fade so the pads began to shake as fish of some sort moved
through them. Twice the float sailed
away and both times I struck thin air, it was turning into one of those days.
At 2130 the float sailed away and this time the rod hooped
over. For some reason I had the anti
reverse on and as the fish powered off I quickly fumbled to release it and give
some line. For a moment I’d been sure I
was about to lose it due to this feck up, imagine that after all those hours of
nothing! It’s just as well these rods
bend through to the butt. Luckily the
fish powered off into open water away from the lilies and I was happy to let it
tire itself out there. There are a few
Carp in this lake and I hoped I wasn’t attached to one, something large and
green rolled in front of me! It tried
its hardest to bury into the lilies and the Norfolk reed to my left but I
managed to bundle a nice sized Tench into the net!
The hook was stuck well into the bottom lip and took some
budging, it would not have come loose during the fight but you never know that
at the time. It was a male fish and the
scales revealed a pleasing weight, from memory I’ve only ever caught one male
bigger than that. There were scars on
one flank which I suspect were caused by a close encounter with my least
favourite mammal… Bloody hell I’ve actually caught a Tench!! I fished on for a while but the fading light
meant my eyes played tricks on me, I kept feeling sure the float was moving but
it never was I packed away with just the
one fish under my belt but it was my first Tench of the season and the first
from a new water. I’d like to think that
this is the first of many and I will soon lose my status as the world’s least successful
Tench angler or are the odds on an England test match win better?
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