Innit Hot!

Ok, so we're not having spring this year, it's gone from winter direct to summer in about a week so it's off with the thermals and waterproofs and on with the shorts and shades. It's 24 degrees today and the tench and bream have decided to come out to play. The tench are still desperately thin mind and I can't really see them packing on the weight that they did last year so my chances of a northwest double look remote.

I've been out twice in the last week and managed to catch some decent specimens of both tench and bream but I soon switched preference from tench to bream since I've more chance of a specimen of the latter species just now. Later in the year when the water really warms up the tench will be catchable in the margins but for now everything is at range, so I took the plunge and bought myself a spod rod.

I've been using a pike rod for spodding for years but having watched a couple of guys using a proper tool for the job - and getting far better results than me, I went and got a Fox spod rod - and it can't half chuck some bait out. I selected a part of the pit where there's a gravel bar, five feet deep some seventy yards out and piled a load of pellets and corn onto it with the rod and a big spod. It was fairly effortless and by clipping up both the spod rod and the fishing rods at the same distance, I was confident that I was fishing right on top of my baited area. Of course it's a bit hazardous to actually fish clipped up - I might get a rod dragged in, so I marked the distance on the fishing rod lines using a piece of high-viz fine pole elastic tied on the line like a stopknot.

Most of the action is at night just now but the odd tench is taking during daylight. By ten in the morning however it's over twenty degrees and neither tench nor bream will feed so it's just overnight sessions for the moment. Results have been ok. this week with five tench, best one going 7lbs 8oz and three bream, two over ten pounds with the biggest a be-tubercled male of 11lbs 1oz. Sadly some of the tench are starting to show signs of mouth damage - something I've never witnessed on this particular pit before. Numbers of carp have been stocked and there are many carpers fishing the pit now with their heavy rods and fine braided hooklengths. I do wish they would play the tench with some consideration instead of skulldragging them in!