May 8th and 9th and Tench fishing on two lakes
Dan from Cadbury Angling joined me for a tench fishing session at Great Somerfords. We arrived to find a blustery wind blowing from the south. The lake looked perfect, the level was at the highest that I had ever seen.
To start with I put out some hemp and dead maggots with just a few live ones via a spomb. Not too much to start. Dan and I measured out our lines to ensure we were casting exactly to the same length as the spomb. I was fishing another area with boilies.
Expectations were high as the warmth of the sun poked through the clouds from time to time.
For 3 hours we fished without a single bleep coming through the bite alarms. There was the occasional fizzing of tench in area’s other than where the bait was cast.
We had something up our sleeves as plan “B” and that was to fish the trout lake which is situated next door to the tench lake. It’s about 7 acres in size and has some good trout to about 4lbs. There are some stunning brown trout that have over wintered for several years.
We had toyed with the idea of fishing the river however with all of the recent rain it was brown, bank high and pushing through making fly fishing, or any other kind of trout fishing impossible.
Whilst Dan put together his leader with 3 flies on I moved to the lakeside. Now I’ve not picked up a fly rod for about 3 years. The previous day I had taken the line of the reel to stretch it and stop the coiling which inevitable happens with line that’s been on there for so long. Soon I spotted a couple of trout moving around the margins on the look out for food. They were not huge but up to about 2lbs. My rod is a small no. 4 brook rod and the leader being 2lbs which matches the rod quite well. I prefer to fish close in and stalk my fish in the crystal clear gravel pit. As the trout came by for the 3rd or 4th time I managed to tempt a rainbow on a pheasant tail nymph. As I was playing it when Dan came by and couldn’t believe I was into one so soon.
I suggested that Dan try the spot as there seemed to be several fish rising in the wind ripple further out way beyond my casting abilities. He had a take almost immediately and played a beautiful brown trout of about 1.5lbs to the net.
I left him to it as I moved around the margins of the lake to find other trout. I found a few small rudd that took the nymph. Dan meanwhile continued catching on a regular basis.
I didn’t fish too much preferring to chat to a couple of other anglers fishing there. Soon our appetite for trout fishing was fulfilled. I had caught a couple of trout and Dan had 9 all in about 3 hours. So we headed back to fish for tench. Well for 4 hours not a bleep came from the alarms and we packed up with a big fat blank.
Well here I was on Horseshoe for just a 20 hr session. I arrived with torrential rain and a strong wind from the south. I was fishing an area about 35 yds out and one which had produced the odd tench so far this season.
I soon put out some bait in terms of hemp and dead maggots into the area. Boy oh boy did it ever rain. Soon I was making a channel to take the rain water away from where the bivvi was positioned. I hadn’t much of a choice about where to put it. Nothing happened during the evening as I sat there listening to the Blackpool v Birmingham promotion semi-final. The forecast was for very strong winds and heavy rain for the night. I wasn’t left disappointed as the wind speed increased and the rain poured. At times I thought I would end up blown into the next county. I was up at 5am recasting with it still raining hard. At 6.30am one of the rods started to roar off and as I approached the culprit was a swan that had picked up the line on it’s leg. It was soon loose and out went the bait again.
So two days fishing and not even a bite. This must surely go down as my worst start ever, 12 days and nights for 3 tench……….anyone want to buy some tench gear!
