Give me an early morning start over an evening session, any day. In fact, I don't recall any especially good catches falling to my rods at dusk, whereas a dawn start all but guarantees a tench on my local canals. When I arrived at the cut this morning, having deposited around two pints of mixed hemp, wheat and sloppy groundbait in last night, the tench had clearly moved in on the feast and were fizzing like good'uns.
In the half-light (I was there by half 4), I wasted no time in getting my kit together, and opened up a new sack of worms. I wanted to make sure that I put enough choppy in to wean the tench off of the bed of particles and onto the worm. I baited two spots with a big cupful, one at 12.5m and one at 14m, but I was able to use the same rig for both due to very little deviation in depth.
For some reason, I had decided to go back to using a hook pattern which has been very reliable for me in the past, a size 12 b920, only today it failed me on the first two put-ins which saw me hook and lose tench, the first of which felt a very good one indeed. I took it off after that, replacing it with a size 14 Drennan Super Spade; a much wider gape pattern but equally as strong. I continued to lose tench - another five, in fact - but it was one of those mornings where there so many in my swim, I was soon over the losses. The only exceptions being that first fish and another which steamed off without any discernible head shakes at all - usually the hallmark of a weighty specimen.
Out of the blue, slap bang in the middle of the action, I also had a bream, weighing 4lb 12½oz. Having concentrated on the largely breamless Taunton to Bridgwater Canal so far this spring, this was a welcome surprise. Fought like a demon too, but for a fraction of the time of those tench which possessed incredible power in what was akin to tap water.
Out of the blue, slap bang in the middle of the action, I also had a bream, weighing 4lb 12½oz. Having concentrated on the largely breamless Taunton to Bridgwater Canal so far this spring, this was a welcome surprise. Fought like a demon too, but for a fraction of the time of those tench which possessed incredible power in what was akin to tap water.
So what did I actually end up with? Well, by seven o'clock I had already landed 8 and lost four, but the action slowed up thereafter, and despite staying until a quarter to ten, I only managed to bank another three. There were also a few small rudd and perch caught but these were returned immediately. Two of the perch had lucky escapes, as they were grabbed by jack pike and let go after some not inconsiderable toing and froing. There were three pike attacks in total, the first of those ending much more in favour of the pike. The total weight of the five tench (top), bream (middle), and further six tench (bottom), came in at 48lb 3½oz. Probably just as well that the seven slipped the hook, or else I might never have been able to lift the keepnet out at the end!
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