tench problem

[Chris Plumb]

Something else that can happen with tench is that they can become pre-occupied with your loose feed - especially hemp or 3mm Trout Pellet. This results in fishing in the middle of a carpet of bubbles and not getting a bite (save for the odd liner). Very frustrating!!!

 

 

C.

[jak]

Fished for Tench a couple of weeks ago and all my fish came to bunches of maggots over a bed of particles (Maggot, pellet, hemp & casters )..... it's been about 10 years since I'd had success with maggots at this particular venue !

 

Failing that try putting casters in with your hemp and fish one or two on the hook. Try making one of them an artificial caster ........ they work much better than you'd think.

[Steve Walker]

I've had similar problems with tench this season. The water has been gin clear, and although I've had masses of bubblers, bites have been harder to come by.

 

I've been float fishing 5lb line straight through to a size 8 with two or three medium sized worms; not lobs. Feeding red maggot and hemp and some brown crumb.

 

What I've found is that I get finicky bites which are hard to hit until the light starts to fade, when they become much more confident. Switching to double maggot on light tackle gets hittable bites very quickly, but the fish are mostly 5.5 to 6.5 pounds in heavy weed, and you just can't stop them weeding you on that gear. Bunches of maggots on the heavy gear work no better than worms.

 

It would appear that either they are tackle shy because of the clear water, or else they are so preoccupied with the particles that anything else is ignored or treated with suspicion. I've seen this happen under clear-water conditions before, and along with the improvement as light levels fall, that makes me suspect that it's the tackle.

 

I suppose hair-rigging might work, or trying some of these new fangled high-tech hooklength materials. I'm just hoping for a bit more colour in the water.

[Robeano]

Steve Walker:

I'm just hoping for a bit more colour in the water.

Could you try raking the swim to stir up a bit of sediment? Not tried it myself but it might help.

 

Robin

[Peter M]

try red strawberry flavour sweet corn. red is colour that turns tench on as are sweet flavours. loose feed the sweet corn. they may be put off yellow sweetcorn.

[edd]

quote:

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I've had similar problems with tench this season. The water has been gin clear, and although I've had masses of bubblers, bites have been harder to come by.

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funny enough the lake is clear this year and its normally murky. its strange as ive had alot more perch this year than last year every session i catch at least 2-3 1lb+ perch biggest being 2 1/2 at mo. i cant use maggots as the lake is full of small roach and rudd and it would never be in the lake long enough for a tench to get to it. but ill give another bait ago and try groundbait instead of pellets.

[jeepster]

don't forget people, bubbles don't always mean tench, there are other reasons for bubbles appearing

[edd]

ah but after 17 years fishing i know the difference between gas escaping etc and tench bubbles.

[Steve Walker]

jeepster:

don't forget people, bubbles don't always mean tench, there are other reasons for bubbles appearing

Heh, *these* are tench. Well, perhaps the occasional carp noses in on the scene, judging by the amount of disturbance created, although the tench are known to run almost to double figures, so maybe not. We're talking large dense patches of tiny bubbles, slowly wandering.

[jeepster]

sure it's not decaying matter under the silt? or grubs grubbing about? all i'm saying is that i've spent too long chasing gas