Tench Advice

[Anderoo]

Out of interest, has anyone used either pellets or luncheon meat (spam) as a hook bait for tench? - Any success?

 

Jason

 

Yes, I've caught a lot of tench on both those baits. Maybe try feeding with some brown crumb groundbait sweetened with some fruity liquid flavour and add in lots of different small food items like hemp, corn, bits of meat, little pellets, maggots, etc. and then you can try different hookbaits and see what works best?

[Guest Chris Perch]

yes lucheon meat I have caught quite a few tench on small cubes seem best I usually cut up my hook baits and use a wire press for my loose feed (slice it and push it through) produces some nice 6mm cubes that can also be hooked on small hooks.

Recently I have been adding some spicy sausage flavour from sonubaits it just boosts the attraction and smells great.

I prefer the lift method when float fishing for tench with about 4-6" laying on the bottom with one large shot to weight the float bites should be a lift of the float rather than it going under.

[Jason]

When I have fished for larger Roach or Perch I have had the bait sitting about 1" off the bottom, this has helped me in the past with getting alot of fish with the "raising float" bite.

Would you forum members all recommend I try the same approach, or fish over depth or a little bit up in the water?

 

Jason

[Andy_1984]

Out of interest, has anyone used either pellets or luncheon meat (spam) as a hook bait for tench? - Any success?

 

Jason

 

yes i use pellets for tench, Strawberry pellets to be exact i lasso rigged 2 of them last year and got a very aggressive take nearly seeing my rod in the water

 

as for popping up baits for tench im sure its not necessary, though i bet someone will think differently

[Anderoo]

When I have fished for larger Roach or Perch I have had the bait sitting about 1" off the bottom, this has helped me in the past with getting alot of fish with the "raising float" bite.

Would you forum members all recommend I try the same approach, or fish over depth or a little bit up in the water?

 

Jason

 

For tench, I would definitely recommend fishing a bait hard on the bottom.

[Steve Walker]

For tench, I would definitely recommend fishing a bait hard on the bottom.

 

I reckon those fake baits end up slightly popped up, mind.

[Dales]

I almost always pop up my Tench baits, Corn, Boilies, Pellets. I only ever fish maggot and worms on the deck.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Dales

[Anderoo]

I guess I was assuming Jason was going to be float fishing, in which case I would still say keep the bait on the deck rather than hovering above it. However, if legering, then popping a bait up so it sits just off the bottom can be very good. This way there is no line through the water to make the fish edgy or make the presentation look odd. When popping up a legered bait, you always know exactly how it's going to sit on the bottom regardless of where you cast. With a float set at a specific depth, unless the bottom is exactly the same depth all over, it'll be sitting at various depths on each cast.

 

With tench being mainly bottom feeders, I'd keep it simple to start with and float fish with a bait on the bottom.

[Dales]

Very good point Anderoo. He did mention match rod

[Jason]

I guess I was assuming Jason was going to be float fishing, in which case I would still say keep the bait on the deck rather than hovering above it. However, if legering, then popping a bait up so it sits just off the bottom can be very good. This way there is no line through the water to make the fish edgy or make the presentation look odd. When popping up a legered bait, you always know exactly how it's going to sit on the bottom regardless of where you cast. With a float set at a specific depth, unless the bottom is exactly the same depth all over, it'll be sitting at various depths on each cast.

 

With tench being mainly bottom feeders, I'd keep it simple to start with and float fish with a bait on the bottom.

 

Thanks for that, I forgot to specify that I will be float fishing.

 

I would like to ledger a pop up bait as well, so that will be my next target. - I have a Drennan series 7 computational feeder rod with various different oz tips, would this be sufficient for Tench?

And I have to admit, I have never used a pop up bait, I can understand the theory of it ok, but would it be better hair rigging the bait or having the bait on the hook and also how much should the bait "pop up" from the deck.

 

Again Thanks.

 

Jason