Tench

Tench are excellent fighters, powerful and making good runs on well balanced tackle, often changing direction to seek the refuge of weed beds and lilies if present in your swim or the margins.

Tench fishing is very popular and whilst there are rods designed specifically for them, any rod with a 1.5lb test curve and a medium action will allow you to enjoy the powerful fight of the fish, whilst retaining some power to ease it away from potential snags.

For standard Tench fishing, use a mainline between 4lb and 6lb with hooklinks between 3-6lb, however if weed is present it would be wise to increase both so fish are not lost. Balance your tackle to the conditions and size of fish that you are likely to hook. Use strong hooks between 8 – 18 depending upon the bait used, size of fish and the nature of the swim being fished.

Location

Targeting and finding Tench in lakes is reasonable straightforward during certain times of the year as the fish are never too far from weed beds and marginal shelves, which provide both cover and feeding areas. They also give there location away at dawn and dusk, throughout the year by rolling. Obviously this is exaggerated during the summer and you may well need to train your eye to spot them.

Tench can produce streams of tiny bubbles when they are feeding and the movement of reeds and lilies and coloured water are always useful pointers. Binoculars can assist greatly when searching for these signs on large waters, especially if you can find a good point to use them from.

The tell tale Tench bubbles themselves are created when the tench forages in the weed and silt, sifting debris out before crushing its food, and the bubbles escape through the gills. So, if you see the tiny white bubbles on the surface, often produced in distinct meandering lines, you will know that browsing Tench are not far away. Sometimes despite these encouraging signs, the fish will be preoccupied on tiny natural baits, so either keep ringing the changes with small baits or move to a different swim where you may encourage the Tench to feed on the baits that you have with you.

Baits

Since their natural foodstuff are bloodworms, small crustaceans and microscopic foods such as daphnia, Tench are naturally attracted to worms, red maggots and casters, however they can be quite easily be tempted by bread flake, pellets,sweetcorn, luncheon meat, prawns, cockles as well as Boilies. The use of cereal groundbait, plain breadcrumb or with flavourings, will often encourage Tench to investigate. Tench also love hemp, which works extremely well during the spring when maggot is your hookbait. Try to use a fine groundbait with just a few freebies within as particle loaded groundbait will see the tench becoming pre-occupied and difficult to catch.

Pre baiting

The pre-baiting of swims can help greatly, especially if after a large net of Tench. It’s especially useful if fish are to be drawn into an area that may not have the ‘classic features’ such as lilies, weed beds and reeds. Since you are encouraging the fish to you rather than having to find them, the baited area should be easy to reach and as snag free as possible. If fishing a water containing Bream, remember that these as well as Roach will also be attracted to the area in considerable numbers, not only reducing your chances of hooking your intended quarry but also hoovering away your bait !

Pre-baiting is best done on a little and often basis rather than giving a swim a one-off big introduction. Pre-baiting tactics should be well thought out and then adhered too. Introduce bait every other day, for as long as you can leading up to your session and increase the amount that you put in once you see evidence that fish are present. Pre-baiting is most effective during the spring when tench are beginning to wake up but can also be brilliant in the winter.

A reasonably cheap pre-baiting mix is to simply use brown breadcrumb (cheap) with frozen sweetcorn (cheaper than tinned) and chopped worms (which are free from a compost heap). Chopped Boilies and casters can also be a useful addition, but do increase the cost of the operation. Vitalin is also a cheap alternative with hemp being the best bait to introduce by far.

Fishing Methods

Since Tench are bottom feeders, the bait has to be presented on the bottom, fairly close to lilies and reed beds is always a good starting point: but fish a few feet away to give yourself of stopping the first run of a hooked fish as it makes straight for the sanctuary of the weed beds.

Float fishing

Using a waggler float and fishing an inch or two over depth or fishing the lift method are the best methods. Tench can sometimes ‘play’ with the bait, resulting in lifts and dinks of the float, but be patient and the float will eventually disappear when they take the bait confidentially.

Legering

Maggot feeders is great over a bed of hemp and open ended feeders plugged with groundbait that contains a free offerings of hookbait can work well as can ‘The Method’ or a semi fixed bolt rig with a PVA bag of pellets attached to it. Tench can be fussy feeders so keep alternating baits until you find what they prefer. Again, bites can sometimes initially be twitchy, but will usually end up in a confident take that will result in your indicator, be it a float, swing tip, quiver tip, or bobbin set on slackened of bait runners showing or sounding a positive take.

Tench are docile fish and are out competed for food on waters holding Carp. Waters that are rich in natural food such as weedy gravel pits, will produce an ideal environment and usually produce specimen Tench. Fisheries where Carp outnumber the Tench, and due to the aggressive rooting around in search of food by them may lead to the water becoming highly coloured and weed free, an environment which often results in Tench not having their staple diet freely available, leading to fish of of a much smaller average size than would be found if the Carp were not present.

The larger Tench that are sought after by specimen anglers are females, with a 7lb fish nowadays being regarded as a good fish. Tench of 8lb+are present in many waters although more often than not caught as ‘nuisance’ fish by Carp anglers. However, it is the smaller males that generally fight harder, with a specimen male of 5lb in weight putting up a memorable fight for its size. Tench have a loyal following and are one of the most sought after fish of pleasure and specimen anglers alike.