Last chance?

Spring has almost passed and finding time to try to catch a Tench or two has been difficult this year. With the river season fast approaching I was determined to have another go and a small window of opportunity opened up on Sunday evening.

On Saturday evening I took a walk around the pit and I didn't like what I saw. Yes the fresh green reeds were growing through and the lilies were flourishing but there were cloned carp anglers everywhere. What a difference a year makes, twelve months ago I was enjoying fishing this old haunt but today all I could see was a chav's camp-site. It's still a nice little pit but it's just too crowded.

Despite all of that I was back again early Sunday evening. I fancied my chances fishing the shallow water, the theory being that the recent warm weather would put spawning into the fishes mind and they would migrate to this end of the pit. There were still a few chavs about but after an unhurried look around I found a nice quiet area where I felt confident I'd be in with a chance. I figured that at the end of a warm, busy weekend lots of bait would have been thrown in the pit so my plan was to not use too much myself. On one rod I fished a small white chocolate flavoured boilie with a PVA bag of mixed pellets. The other rod was set up with a maggot feeder, short hook length with some buoyant fake corn and a bunch of maggots on one of those fancy maggot clip things. The boilie rod was cast to a small group of lilies in otherwise open water whilst the feeder was cast across to the edge of the reeds. Both rigs had a couple of hands full of mixed pellets chucked on top. I also rigged up a whip and float fished maggots close in but after catching a Rudd a chuck for a while I got bored.

As the Chavs departed the pit became more quiet and I lost myself listening to T20 cricket on the radio. My part of the pit looked lovely; a Kingfisher zipped past, a coot herded her brood and Grebes fished while England beat India in a close match. Unfortunately England's success on the field was not matched by success with the Tench fishing. I did have another bash with the whip, catching a nice Roach amongst all the Rudd but I never looked like catching a Tench.

When the radio cricket coverage ended, the temperature started to drop and so did my confidence. I started to slowly tidy up, I still haven't lost my title as the world's worst Tench angler. Next spring I'll have to put in more time, more effort and find a new water.