Red Eyes and Whiskers...

...the fish that is, not me.

The tench fishing's been a bit up and down just lately. I had one very good catch of fifteen fish one day with the best going 8lbs 10oz but after that it's been pretty slow. The big catch contained no less than four fish over eight pounds, a first for me since I've never had more than two eights in a day before but the big fish is still eluding me.
Denis and I have been fishing other parts of the lake again to see if we can track down a really big tench but once again our efforts have been hampered by bream. The bream seem to move into an area in quite big numbers at times and of course they will mop up any bait that's there so if you put in just a little, as i like to with the tench, then it doesn't last very long.
We did have something of a first last week though, after two years fishing this venue I saw Denis get a tench. Every other tench he's caught has been when he's been fishing on his own and come to think about it, I've never done that well myself when he's been with me. Maybe by baiting two swims close together we're cutting down our chances since the head of tench is generally quite small.

We had a break from tenching this week as the river season has opened and we've had a bit of rain which flushed the river out nicely. It was just a daytime trip, a "shakedown" session as Denis likes to call them. That's where we change species and have to sort our gear out afresh. I'm afraid i didn't sort mine out that well, I forgot my swimfeeders! It wasn't such a problem though as I had a few method feeders in my box and I made do with one of them on one rod while I just fed with PVA nets of pellets on the other.

It was a bright, hot day and not much feeds in those conditions and neither of us caught anything until evening was upon us. After five o'clock I had the first barbel at exactly ten pounds in weight then Denis followed up with two at 9lbs 2oz and 10lbs 12oz. That's a nice start, to get a double each and we'll probably be back there next week for a proper barbel session.