help

[ashley-h]

ive only been fishing sereously for about a year now and ive found a really nice little lake containing carp roach perch chub gudgeon and tench .but ive still not caught a tench every time i try iether carp or roach take the bait .any tips to help me catch my first tench

[Tyke]

As the temperature of the water drops, you may find it becomes harder and harder to catch a tench. However, you could try using either leger, or float leger, hard on the bottom. You could, also try using 'laying on'. Baits such as worm, bunches of red or bronze maggots, red or yellow pellets - rather than boilies, even breadpaste flavoured with custard powder can work. The smaller size of bait will tend to discourage carp, as they have been programmed to accept boilies. Fish near any of the weed beds as they die back. You should certainly use ground bait. I would suggest walnut size lumps of the same colour as your bait. Flavouring the offering with worm juice, maggot juice etc does help, as does using a fishmeal based ground bait mix. The post on 'How, When, and Where tench feed,' may help.

[BoldBear]

Tench fishing is very slow at this time of year but they still need to put on some weight to see them over the colder months ahead, so on a mild day especially; one or two Tench may still be on the cards.

Water Lillies:
My mates and I have noticed over the years at our clubs estate lake; that once the water lillies had changed colour and started dying off; the larger Tench started to be caught well away from the decaying water lillies, we puzzled about this but we decided that it might be because the rotting lillies were emitting a decaying/pugnant taste into the water that they didn't like, however the smaller Tench (up to around the 1.5lb mark) would still need to keep safe from predators so would tend to remain amongst the lilly roots and rotting leaves and stems which afforded them a little more cover from predators.

I would either lay my groundbait downwind of a bed of water lillies (but not too close) or near an overhanging branch or some reeds along the nearside or against an island but not directly in the shade because the suns rays will be heating the water a little and the Tench will be taking advantage of the extra couple of degrees at this time of year.
I would beware of really shallow swims at this time of year as their small red eyes can be very sensitive against the harsh bright sun that we sometimes get from a clear autumn and winter sun.

For hookbait at this time of year I use fresh casters, red maggots or small soft pellets; with some 'STench' groundbait which contains small particles with some sweet mollasses and a few hookbaits. I don't use a lot of groundbait at this time of year so after an initial 1 or 2 orange sized balls I only top up with a few smaller golf ball sized balls every hour or after I have caught a Tench (unless we are having an indian summer when I might use more).

I usually use finer line at this time of year and would be using 4lb to 5lb mainline with 3.5 to 4.5lb hooklengths and size 18 or 16 hooks together with my Drennan Tench rod or my medium sized Daiwa Amorphous Whisker float rod.

Anyway if you are set on catching a few late autumn Tench then good luck. Nowerdays I leave my Tench fishing until the early spring when the water is warming up and the Tench are starting to wakeup with an appetite after moving very little and feeding very sparingly over the winter months.

Tight Lines

Keith (BoldBear)