Trying something different for Tench...

[Tyke]

One of the biggest problems in angling, is the fabled monster fish. Treat all such reports with a great deal of scepticism!
As winter sets in, fishing for tench in still water becomes increasingly difficult. Slow flowing rivers are probably your best bet from now until the new season starts. Deep water can still produce at this time of year, but the normal margin swims will not prove so productive.Temperature is a key factor in tench fishing. Unless you fish a river, any temperature below about 50C is the kiss of death. In rivers, tench tend to seek food at temperatures well below this.
Even on the rivers, smaller baits seem to work best. For example, maggots, small worms, small lumps of paste. Avoid large boilies. They do catch fish, but do you really want to wait weeks, between bites?
I enjoy fishing my local river for tench during winter, so good luck.

[alphaa]

Originally Posted by Tyke

I find that tench tend to favour sweet baits, rather than spicey.
I have used pop - ups on occasion, but usually find that tench will find a hookbait, even when it has sunk in to mud or weed.
Tench tend to respond to plain brown fishmeal based groundbait, with hookbait samples mixed in, so it might not be necessary to mix a cocktail of groundbait. Indeed it may be counter - productive in that you could attract nuisance species such as carp ( tongue in cheek at this point).
I tend to ring the changes with bait, as I believe it gives me an edge over other anglers, who are all using the same bait because they were told someone had caught a tench on it, back in 1872!
Go ahead and experiment. You may just find a method that opens another era in tench fishing. Good luck

all my tench this season where caught using magg/corn cocktails fished over a bed of blended brown bread, strawberry milkshake powder, beef gravey granuals and sweetcorn relish ground bait, when my bites dried up i changed rigs but that recipe is what i used to good effect on one particular water..

[Ardon]

Sticking sweet and sour Pot Noodles on your hook may sound like a good catching idea but you'll probably get done for cruelty to animals!!!!!!!!

Has anyone ever used a mac donalds cheese burger as a hook bait????

I'll put money on the fish spitting it out pronto!!!!!

KFC do what's called pop corn chicken that is boilie sized so I may just try Colonel Sanders secret recipe out one day on the local canal!!!!!!!

Looking at the ground baits, flavourings, additives etc available to an angler the bloody fish eat better than I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cat food me gonna try that if I manage to secrete away some from the cats scran dish when shes not looking!!!

Originally Posted by Tyke

One of the biggest problems in angling, is the fabled monster fish. Treat all such reports with a great deal of scepticism!

HHHmmmmm!!!!! A local pond around here called 'Tench Hill' that funnily was fulla nothing but Tench had a monster fish, or a bunch of Tench all collaborating, that a lot of folks had almost hooked but It always managed too rid itself of the iron and disappeared into heavy weed every bloody time!!!!!!!!!!!

[alphaa]

dont forget a 6 pk of budweiser while your at it, oh and a chill pill for yourself.

think of the rubbish that is thrown at carp these days..then you might have a case for cruelty...anywonder they're fat barstools and deformed from their natural shape....

experiment is the key word here and not all of us get caught at tackle shops with baits of extortinate prices when homebrew can do the job too,

catch fish..not the fisherman...

heres one that fell to my tactics....a nice 5lb 12ozer from a secret n.irish wild water...not the overfed predictable commercial waters that are everywhere these days...

[Ardon]

Tench are my fav fish but the biggest I have managed to catch was a 2.6lb specimen that fought like hell!!!!

Made a change considering that the resident Sticklebacks were a bloody pain in the arse.........

How can a fish so small manage to take a bait that is four or five times bigger than its gob????????

Originally Posted by alphaa

dont forget a 6 pk of budweiser while your at it, oh and a chill pill for yourself.

Only a 6 pack???????

The local waters ban ale and smoking substances from their waters but I nor any of my mates and others really don't care about that!!!!

As a smoker u can put money on when u are half way through rolling a fag you'll get a bloody bite!!!!!

[WesJones1984]

[quote=alphaa;212127]
heres one that fell to my tactics....a nice 5lb 12ozer from a secret n.irish wild water...not the overfed predictable commercial waters that are everywhere these days...[quote]

Lovely fish, what tactics and bait did you use to catch that?

Was that a recent catch?

[Ardon]

ALPHA LAD - Wes boy is as curious as I but the hefty tench pictured is a magnificent specimen indeed!!!!!!!

I honestly didnt think that they came in as big a weight as that!

JJJJezzzzzzzz - my 2.6lb Tench catch was a monster to land but a 5lb plus fish - total wow!!!!