Anthony78

Although my fishing style does tend to catch the shoal fish, I'm generally happy to play the numbers game until a bigger specimen comes along, I was surprised by the amount of smaller tench I was catching. I haven't worked out my average yet but I would say it was around the 5lb mark. If you need a hand catching some of those nuisance fish give me a shout Steve

Had a quick look around the net and the general consensus is that this colouration is down to spawning and is generally only on the males. I know mine was a male but not sure about anyone else's? Also I would have thought that it was too early for them to be getting ready for spawning yet? I'm surprised you've not seen this at Wingham before though Steve. Hopefully it's nothing to worry about.

Now you mention it the first tench I caught had a very distinctive red tinge to it. I even took a photo of it in the net as I'd never seen it before. Any ideas on what this could be Steve?

Wingham Fish-in 2015: Firstly a massive thank you from myself, my girlfriend Vicky, Cliff and his wife Julie to all the bailiffs, old and new, for all their hard work and shear determination to make this fish-in happen again this year. This fish-in literally would not have happened if it weren't for you guys so thank you all. Secondly another big thank you to Peggy for an awesome BBQ and given that the burgess boys were not there, there was plenty to go around so seconds had to be in order Thirdly I must thank Steve himself as we have been fishing the Wingham fish-ins for nearly 10 years now and it's still the highlight of our fishing year. Also thanks to Steve C for the welcome bacon butty which went down a treat on Saturday morning. The auction, now it's bad enough watching items on eBay going for silly money and not being able to bid on them because of my ever growing collection but to be in a room watching items generously donated to the bailiffs go for silly money had me reaching for my wallet....twice . I came away with a new rod and reel, which I didn't really need, but at least I knew that my money was going to a good cause. Next year I'll definitely be donating something myself......I wonder if anyone would want an 18ft float rod . Ok so onto the fishing, now some of you may have heard that I had quite a successful weekend. To be honest this is an understatement as this is by far the best tench session I have ever had in my life. 20 tench came to my rods over the 3 days with 4 of them being over the 8lb mark and the largest going 8lb 9oz, just 5oz shy of my pb set at last years fish-in. This year Steve chose 'Big island platform' as my home for the weekend. As the name suggests, the swim had an island at around 70 yards and a number of bars running straight out from the bank and ending at 50 yards with a 9ft channel running the length of the island. After speaking to Anderoo in the clubhouse and some of the other members I'd almost decided where to fish before even seeing the swim with only a little plumbing around with the marker to find the exact spot to drop the rigs on. As the fish-in was earlier this year I listened to the advice from Steve regarding the tench still feeding in the silt due to the lack of food on top of the bars. I dropped my right and middle rod onto a spot where 2 bars met in the hope to intersect fish moving along either of them. My left rod was cast to an area which, when I dragged the marker over it, felt like glass. Lovely smooth silt which had clearly been fed on and an area similar in nature to the one I caught my pb from last year. On the right and middle rod, both fished at 50 yards, I wanted to experiment a little with baits so, on the right rod I fished a double fake caster hook bait with a golf ball sized bag of the real thing nicked onto the hook. The middle rod, fished to the same area, was armed with double fake maggot and a small bag of red maggots nicked on for good measure. These rods were not fished over any bait other than what I was putting in via the PVA bags. The caster rig was the first to go so both of these rods were then changed to this for the remainder of the day and night with 5 of the 20 fish falling to this method over the weekend. The left hand rod was fished at 46 yards over around 10 medium spombs of dark groundbait (black crumb and expo) with very little in the way of freebies. I was going to be fishing a method ball over this so I wanted this to be what the tench homed in on instead of a large area of particles which are so popular with tench fishing nowadays. In summary I caught fish on both methods but it was the method feeder which was producing most of the bites. I was having to wait a while between them though! This got me thinking that perhaps I was still giving them too much food and they weren't feeding aggressively enough for the method to be the most effective.........well method. They clearly liked the mix I was using though so I decided to move my middle rod over to my left spot and fish a small stick of the method mix threaded onto the hook link. I actually turned to my girlfriend Vicky and said "if my middle rod goes in the next few minutes I could be onto something". 10 minutes later and 'beeeeeeeeep!'. Although I had to tweak things around a bit to keep the fish coming the majority of my haul came from the method or the small stick fished in conjunction with a scaled down bolt rig. Here's my list of tench for the weekend in order of capture: 5lb 11oz (Male) 6lb 2oz (Female) 8lb 9oz (F) 5lb 13oz (M) 4lb 15oz (M) 7lb (F) 8lb 1oz (F) 4lb 14oz (M) (almost positive that this was a recapture of the above 4lb 15oz fish) 5lb 9oz (M) 4lb 9oz (M) 2lb (F) 8lb 1oz (F) 5lb 14oz (F) 5lb 6oz (F) 8lb 8oz (F) 3lb (F) 2lb (F) 5lb 8oz (F) 3lb 8oz (M) 5lb 11oz (F) Here's the pics of the 4 x 8's caught along with a surprise visitor we had on Sunday morning:

In the last 8-9 trips to Wingham I've never caught through the hours of darkness, I did have an occurance over on middle wood one year which I won't talk about because I forgot to switch my alarm on . Last night however I managed to break that curse and put 2 lovely tench on the bank at 7lb and 8lb 1oz. I did lose another at 5am this morning but thankfully it didn't feel too big. I have to admit to being very nervous this morning at 4am as my bream rod fished on method feeder over a bed of smooth silt gave a single beep, then the indicator shot up half way. I switched my alarm off and just hovered over the rod with shaking hands waiting for line to tick off the baitrunner before even contemplating picking it up. 30 seconds later the bobbin hit the rod and the spool span into life as a fish was clearly hooked. Unfortunately I knew straight away that it wasn't a bream but I'll be honest my heart stopped beating when I lifted that rod. It still turned out to be an 8lb 1oz tench so I was not complaining. Total tally for me as of this morning is 7 tench with the biggest going 8lb 9oz. I'm hoping to build on this but the wind has just changed to a cold northerly so we'll have to see how this impacts the fishing.

Even if I'm not in a noted bream area I'll be putting out method feeders and fake baits in the hope that one of the big slabs make an appearance. It would be rude not too!

I feel the same Mat, this is by far the most unprepared I have been for a fishin. I'm currently between properties so all my stuff is crammed into a storage locker including all my fishing gear. I spent 3 hours digging through boxes last night trying to find bits of tackle but I know I will forget something :-(. Oh well as long as I can get a line into Wingham I'll be happy. Oh crap, that reminds me, I need to replace the line on my reels :-(

Unfortunately I've only recently done a car boot and have cleared any unwanted fishing tackle/books prior to moving address so I'm afraid I won't have anything to contribute to the auction but as always I will be leaving a very generous contribution in the bailiff's box as I fully appreciate the hard work and effort these guys put into making sure the fish-in happens year in year out.

I remember the first year that myself and Cliff fished Wingham. We were very 'green' back then and had very basic camping gear. I had a single skin bivvy, a 2 season sleeping back from Argos and no thermal clothes. The first night was below freezing and I don't think I slept at all that night! Second night I was wearing all the clothes I had with me and was still cold. Lesson learnt!!

Matt you've pretty much just explained my tactics although I won't be bringing any boilies. I've done so well on maggot feeders in the past that this will be my main line of attack depending on how far out I'm fishing. If I'm fishing more than 30 yards then I'll probably change over to method feeders or solid bags but for close in work I struggle to find a better tactic. If the perch haven't spawned then I'll fish one rod on worm while the other will be on fake grubs. I'm not a fan of eels at all so all 3 rods will probably go over to method feeders and plastic corn for the night hoping that I can trip up one of those elusive dustbin lids. I'm going to see what the weather is doing before I decide on qty of bait as I have had some cracking results at Wingham by filling it in on the last day but only if the weather is right. I remember a couple of years ago when I was fishing Tim's point and I was blanking until the Monday when the pressure started to drop like a stone and the wind picked up. I felt that it was right for some bait so I put 2 kilo of red crumb/expo mix with some freebies with the spomb after the lunch time BBQ and they switched on. I ended up with 3 tench by the time we packed up and a double take to boot. I'm so looking forward to this but I do feel so unprepared this year as I haven't sorted any gear as yet and everything is 120 miles away in the Midlands at the minute so I could be borrowing more than a bivvy at this rate .

I haven't found my local tackle shop yet so not sure if I'm able to get maggots either. I wonder if Steve could hire one of those maggot dispensing machines for the fish-in ;-)

Great news! Thanks Steve.

Thanks Steve, that would be great thank you. Fingers crossed we'll both make it.

I know! I was going to suggest she stay in the club house but only seeing each other at the BBQ's was not "quality time together" apparently

Can't remember which year it was but just recall seeing a shoal of Rudd 'porpoising' down the lake towards me. They all looked huge and ignored the maggots I started spraying over their heads. You may get them on the dry fly although you may struggle with a back cast

Hi guys, Does anyone have a spare 2 man bivvy I could borrow for the weekend if I get a place please? I'm bringing the girlfriend this year but I currently only have a 1 man and don't want to go through the expense of buying one for a weekend. Thanks Ant

Tell them they'll have to do it in 3 weeks as you have a very important meeting with a 'big fish' ?.

I'll be in the same boat this year Andrew. The week prior to the fish-in I'll be clearing my flat out in worcester and putting everything into storage then the week after the fish-in we should be moving into our new home in Woking. It's almost like I planned it! ?

"I'm quite keen to see what can be achieved in spot selection and baiting using my Water Wolf camera on the spod or marker rod - if I find what seems like a good spot, I should be able to cast the camera over, whip the card out into my laptop and see how it looks! Also, perhaps to leave it out on the marker rod while spodding and see how it looks - I'm guessing the water is going to be gin clear". That's a very expensive pike lure to have on Steve. Don't forget the wire trace! ?

Email sent and everything crossed! ?

I've not been able to get going on the perch this year. My favourite perch lake, where I've had them to over 4 in the past, is still closed due to wet ground and won't be open until next month by which point I'll be living down sarf so will have missed my chance. Had the carp bug through the winter but now I've hit my 2015 target of a thirty I'll now be concentrating on breaking the 9lb tench barrier. Wingham has been good to me in the past so they will be my target once again. I always come to the fish-in armed with worms though......just incase I'm blanking and have to play with the eels to make sure my alarms work ?

Managed to get out the weekend to see if the tench were awake on my local estate lake. Managed 6 small ones around 2-3lb and then struck gold with a cracking 5lb 8oz fish which is a good fish for this lake and was in winter condition so lots of filling out to do. Would love to catch this fish again in June as I'm yet to break the 6lb mark on this lake and I've been fishing it seriously for the last few seasons. Anyway it's got me in the mood for tench now. Hey Steve, has Wingham started to wake up yet?

I start a new job on Monday and one of the first things I'll be requesting is this weekend as a holiday. Just hope We get a place again this year.

mud pig for me! :-)

I'm afraid so ayjay. I stopped putting things in my mouth once I started hearing reports of Weils disease and most of the waterways I night fish do have a rat population. Ant