Spring Tench

 7-02

I always enjoy a spot of spring tench fishing  and pre-spawning, they are usually in excellent condition and, for the would be specimen hunter, probably attain their maximum weight at this time of year.
I must admit to being slightly baffled by, and Dave agrees with me on this, the attitude of  some tench specialists I've come across when they tell me that they actually cease tench fishing once the fish have spawned which usually occurs some time in June.
When you think that in the days of the old coarse fishing closed season , tench fishing usually began on June the 16th, It's odd to see how attitudes have changed.
What I do not have a problem with, are the modern tactics used to catch them in this case 'bolt rigs and bite alarms' which, if the mood takes me, I find equally as much fun as watching a float, and there is no doubting their effectiveness. At the end of the day, its just fishing.
Usually the sound of the bite alarm, despite being set on very low volume, sees me leaping out of my chair like a mad thing.
Anyway we caught some nice tench to mid fives from my favourite local pit on maggot feeder and also had a few trips to a new private lake that Dave has secured permission to fish which allegedly, contained some very big specimens .
This water proved a little more difficult to master , with a couple of blank sessions before eventually, on an all night trip on June 8th, the 'seven' pictured at the top took my sweet corn bait in the early hours of the morning.Job done