Gravel Pit Tench

After a series of trials fishing for tench [here] on my previous blog, the time had come to put my rigs into practice for a really big tench. A Cotswold gravel pit had been chosen with 2 nights available to bag a nice tench. 

The first task upon arrival was a bit of feature finding. The use of a Deeper sonar supported me in finding the change in depths quickly and I was able to pinpoint some areas with less weed growth to fish on. This resulted in two rods at 11 wraps and one much shorter on a higher plateau to my left. Besides tench, the pit also contained carp and these were regularly giving their presence away by leaping from the water. The left rod was set up with a solid bag, baited with a bright pink pop up on a multi-rig. I've never seriously fished for carp at any stage in my life, but it seemed a good idea given the activity and the likelihood that bites would be hard to come by. I absolutely did not want to blank on this trip. The other two rods were set up with standard heli-rigs and a maggot approach although I had worms as an alternative. At this stage, I did not introduce any bait via spodding. I wanted to catch tench and I feared that putting bait on those spots would only attract carp. It was also particularly windy so I didn't want to risk spreading bait about. Instead, regular casting began to build up an area of maggots that would hopefully catch the eye of any patrolling tench. 

7lb 12oz and a great start

It was no surprise that my companion for the trip, Coops, hooked and landed a carp from the next swim. There certainly seemed to be a lot of carp in that area. However, it was myself that drew first blood on the tench front and guess what? It came on the solid bag rig. Typical. A nice tench that went 7lb 12oz was banked and I was up and running after just a few hours of the trip. A carp followed to maggot not long after that went around 16lb. 

By late afternoon and into the evening, I had baited one of the tench rods with the worm kebab. It was this rod that was next to fool a tench with a really positive bite. A spirited battle saw another female tench on the bank. Although it looked larger, this one went 7lb 7oz. A lost carp to a hook pull was the only other action that evening, but I went to bed feeling really happy with the first day's results. 

A 7lb 7oz tench 

It was 3.43am when I awoke. It was still dark so I decided I should wait a little longer before recasting the rods. The heavens then opened and I was forced to listen to torrential rain for about half an hour before I could venture outside. The crayfish had stripped the baits meaning a rethink would be required for the following night. There was no dawn tench even though it looked perfect. A sunny day developed with another lost carp and a lost tench souring things slightly although Coops bagged his first tench of the trip with a 5lb male fish. I did spod a bit of bait on this day, with hemp and 2mm pellets placed in small quantity over the rods. It was later in the day when my popped up maggot bait was taken and a tench was on. All was going to plan as it approached the marginal shelf when it all went solid, and I mean solid. I was convinced the fish was still on but it wasn't moving. A spell with the bail open failed to change the situation and no matter which angle I applied pressure, nothing happened to fill me with confidence. In fact, I'd practically given up hope when my final throw of the dice was to pull directly with the rod pointing at the snag. A perilously dangerous manoeuvre that I was convinced would result in a snapped line. Miraculously, the feeder and fish were dislodged and I was back in business with the tench soon landed. It was a good one as well. The net revealed a plump looking tench that was clearly bigger than the ones landed on the previous day. The scales settled on 8lb 12oz and provided me with a new tench PB. I was delighted. 

My tench PB at 8lb 12oz

The night came and went with no action even though I changed to hook baits that survived the crayfish. That last morning turned out to be a little frustrating. Lots of tench were topping but despite what looked like perfect conditions, neither myself nor Coops were troubled by them. I lost a really nice carp that I had successfully battled to keep out of the nearside tree line only for the hooklink to snap when it felt like the hard work had been done. I didn't get the best of views but Coops, who was waiting with the net, suggested it would have been good enough to beat my carp PB. Nothing else materialised and the 48 hours came to a conclusion. Although  I failed to catch a fish on that last morning, the session as a whole had been a huge success. Three tench including a PB was a really satisfying result and had me making plans for another gravel pit adventure soon. Of course, the opening of the river season will provide further distractions but I'll do my best to fit it all in. 

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Tench - Spring Experiments

The river season ended with me snaring a super pike that would have undoubtedly been my first Avon twenty. Unfortunately, whilst readying myself to weigh the fish,it managed to escape without a photo nor confirmation of its weight. Not ideal, but always next year even though it haunted me for days. 

With 3 months to go before the rivers reopen, my attention turned to tench in early April. With a session booked on gravel pit at the end of May, I was keen to try out rigs on an easier water.

I started with two rods, both armed with helicopter rigs. Red maggots were the used in the feeder and on the hook. Presentations included a buoyant rubber maggot mounted as an aligner together with a couple of real ones on size 12 and 14 Korum Grappler hooks to a 4" of fluorocarbon hooklink, thus creating a bolt rig effect.

The addition of foam pops the bait up

The heli rig (left) and the inline feeder

 

Proceedings started modestly with hooked fish but an unusually high number of tench shedding the hook on the heli rigs. I suspected the 60g feeders were the culprit and the spirited fish were shaking the hooks free especially as I was not fishing much more than 25 yards or so. A reduction to 45g seemed to solve the issue along with setting up one of the rods with an inline Drennan feeder. I concluded that at close range the inline feeder had much better hooking properties compared to the helicopter setup. However, casting accuracy at longer distances saw the heli rigs come out on top. With more confidence in the actual setups, my next job was to attract more bites. 

At this stage they were not occurring as frequently as I expected so another bit of research was needed. This is when I decided to eliminate hair rigs and aligners and instead place a piece of red rig foam alongside 2 maggots directly on to a size 12 hook. This presented the maggots popped up a few inches off the bottom. The results were game changing. Tench were hitting the bait with regularity and hook ups were very efficient. With the inline method and the lighter feeder on the heli rigs, my catch rate upped significantly. The sessions were only short, a few hours from late afternoon until the light went but many a tench adorned my net and provided me with lots of confidence in my end tackle. The tench weren't huge with them all weighing in around the 3-5lb range but they provided super sport. It was important that when experimenting, I found a water that would provide me with the opportunity to receive enough bites to draw some conclusions. With the pit visit planned, I now had some clear methods to employ and the hope of bigger tench to come. Of course, my next blog will be all about my quest for some larger tench. 

A plump tench taken as the sun set

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