Tench raking

[Andy Macfarlane]

After you've raked a swim, how quickly can you expect to find tench (assuming there's a reasonable enough population) in that area investigating what's been kicked up or fed in??

 

Are we talking immediately, hours, a day, days.....what??

 

I've seen tench activity in a certain swim but it's almost unfishable but some kindly fellow tenchers made me some rakes but I'm not sure whether to rake a known patrol area and then bang a bait in right away or rake and pre-bait, rake and pre-bait for a few days and then fish the chosen area.

 

How long do you wait?....or, how bold are tench? Will they move into an area fairly sharpish or completely bugger off until they believe the coast is clear?

 

Regards....Andy

[Chris Plumb]

After you've raked a swim, how quickly can you expect to find tench (assuming there's a reasonable enough population) in that area investigating what's been kicked up or fed in??

 

Are we talking immediately, hours, a day, days.....what??

 

I've seen tench activity in a certain swim but it's almost unfishable but some kindly fellow tenchers made me some rakes but I'm not sure whether to rake a known patrol area and then bang a bait in right away or rake and pre-bait, rake and pre-bait for a few days and then fish the chosen area.

 

How long do you wait?....or, how bold are tench? Will they move into an area fairly sharpish or completely bugger off until they believe the coast is clear?

 

Regards....Andy

 

I've caught tench within minutes of raking a swim - crucians too!

 

 

C.

[tincatinca]

Yes, the action can start almost immediately but do not make the mistake of trying to clear too much. Obviously it can vary from water to water dependant on what you are trying to clear out but in many cases it does not need to be a large area say a metre square.

[Jeffwill]

I've caught tench within minutes of raking a swim - crucians too!

 

 

C.

 

I have too but after throwing in a small grappling hook, which is enough to break up the bottom. You can also throw it in a number of times without causing too much noise / disturbance.

 

If the swim is heavily weeded it needs to be tackled before the session really unless you are making a "gap".

[wayne baker]

Very quickly at times. Depending on the water.

 

Bit late to be talking about tench aint it Andy?

[The Squire]

Very quickly at times. Depending on the water.

 

Bit late to be talking about tench aint it Andy?

 

 

I would tend to agree and would not set out with the intention of Tench much past early September. But that's just me and would be interested in others experience.

Regards,

Dave.

[poledark]

Depends on the bottom layer I think. I have purchased a super dooper rake, cost me £125 !! 10 sections and reaches out to 55ft. I can ACCURATELY, and with very little effort, clean a strip, or patch. I have been steadily clearing/raking small areas (usually about 6ft wide) in almost every swim on the lake I fish.

 

Most swims have a silty bottom, mostly quite deep silt, mostly the black evil smelling stuff. These swims I leave to settle and then I have returned to them a week or so later, and removed a bit more debri. In some of the swims I have felt the gravel under the silt , so I have worked on these to leave a (hopefully) nice clean area.

 

Early days yet, but I intend to keep these gravelly areas clear, especially next spring when the weed starts to grow back, and bait them up whenever I get the chance.

The black silty swims I will leave alone, I have no faith that fish like that stuff, and can't imagine much insect life does either. Someone pointed out to me that raking these spots may "aireate" the silt and encourage insect life to colonise them. Who knows?

 

Den

[Andy Macfarlane]

Cheers men.

[Anderoo]

I agree, tench love a bit of disturbance and will often be on the disturbed spot very quickly (except in horrible silt, as Den says). This is even true of low pressure lakes where you'd expect them to be spooky. In my experience they're scared of people (shadows, voices, vibrations) but not the disturbance in the water they make (marker floats, spodding, raking, casting). For that, I am always very grateful!

[SpecimenSean]

Depends on the water, the bottom, what they feed on. Ive fished and raked hourly with dynamite results, other waters it kills it for the day.

 

A muddy or silty bottom is usally good for regular raking as the only thing being distrubed is just that, throwing all the worms, grubs, larvae etc up into the water eventually settling on the bottom for the tench to come in and eat. When im doing this i dont put much if any bait in, maybe some black groundbait with chopped worm or casters and a BIG lobworm on the hook. Ive even used slugs and beatle larvae (easily "pond dipped" like when we were kids ) with excellent results.

 

If the swim is very weedy i'll come the day before as pulling up lots of weed really disturbs the swim too much (although id like to hear if anyone has had different experiences) and also releases lots of smelly gases from rotting, dead weed which i think, and this is only personal opinion, the fish can smell and stay away from. I then bait it up with lots of dead maggots and chopped worm. I was told once that if you dont like the smell and even taste of something, a fish probably wont either! One reason i always flavour my **** smelling maggots!