Oh where are the Tench ?

Right well since my last blog I have had 4 sessions and failed to land a single tench but heres a very brief run down on the sessions . The first 2 wont have much content as they will featured in a future Tenchfishers bulletin . Right first session was to be a 48 hour session and my first ever visit to the once famous Sywell reservoir for the Tenchfishers Midland's region 60th Anniversary fish in and what a fantastic time it was . I fished on the west bank along with 6 others the result was none of us had a bite and on the east bank and a further 9 anglers suffered the same fate while 3 anglers in a row shared 8 tench while 2 had one each and the guy in the middle had 6 . the fish ranged in size from 5lb 4oz to 7lb 1oz . The weekend had loads of laughs and food delivered both nights in the form of chips and fish friday and a curry saturday plus a special cake made for the 60th Anniversary .

Heres my set up from the session

Think I am ok showing the cake but feel sure I will be told if not lol

My next session was a 24 hour midweek one back at Sywell , which has got under my skin as apart from the odd ignorant dog walker is a fantastic venue to spend time on all be it very challenging .

I changed my set up slightly for this visit by using tungsten tubing and flying back leads to pin my line down .

As the hours passed I still saw no sign of a fish and got my head down for some sleep unfortunately it was a full moon and a clear night , the temperature plummeted plus it was so light that the birds started the dawn chorus at 3.30am and at 4.06am this was the seen .

I made a brew and sat on my bedchair watching the lake for signs on life and shortly before 5am my left hand rod bobbin bounced and then pulled up to the blank I was in and lifted into what I thought was to be my first Sywell tench errrrrrrrrrrr wrong I had infact caught my first Sywell Coot !!!!!!!!!!!! and that was that .

I decided I needed a confidence boost so a few days later I was on the match lake but was to find out that the tench were in a very finicky mood and had been going days without been seen , I took a very slow walk round with my polaroids on searching for signs and finished up in a corner I had never fished before .

Out went the float and and I missed a bite first cast , the weather was red hot and there was loads of pollen and seeds in the air and in the water as you can see round my float .

In the next couple of hours I caught around 20 roach between 6oz and 1lb and then hooked a better fish which turned out not to be a tench but this fully scaled mirror of 8lb 11oz.

My last session for this blog was yesterday and things have not got any better . I fished a new venue that I have driven passed hundreds of time but it cant be seen from the road . Its a syndicate but they have day tickets so after swapping a couple of emails with the Syndicate organiser I was given information on swims and seemed that my method laying on with the float was the way to go . forecast for the day was for heavy rain all day but worse if all was the wind would be straight into the swims I had been advised on . When I arrived it was teaming down and the wind was making it impossible to fish in those conditions so off I went for a walk , after an hour of looking I settled on a swim in a small bay that looked ok and when a fish topped as I was about to get my gear from the van then that sealed the swim choice . On plumbing up I discovered it was around 4 and a half feet deep and so set up laid on and put a small amount of bait in , while plumbing up I also discovered there was a bit on weed growing up to with in a foot of the surface but had found a clear spot which negated me going back to my van for the weed rake .

The rain began to increase but under the brolly it was ok plus my confidence was still high as had seen more small fish show and also had seen some very strange bursts of large bubbles in various places in the bay which suggested fish movement . The rain was so heavy that the drops were bouncing higher than my float .

What happened next still has me shaking my head , my float slightly lifted and then slid away . I lifted into the bit and felt resistance but no kick and started to retrieve what I thought must be a  piece of weed but no it turned out to be what I have been told is a yellow bellied slider turtle !!!!!!

As you can imagine this didnt inspire me and less so when I released it and it absolutely shot off and caused the exact same bubbles from earlier and I decided to call it a day and go home . I loaded the van and sat and reviewed my last few sessions and came to the conclusion its was just a slight slump and it would end soon . I plan another go at this last venue and in 3 days I am having another 24 hours on Sywell which I doubt will be any different to my other 2 sessions but you have to try , I know to 5 guys who have done between 24 and 72 hours over the last 2 weeks and one fish has been caught but they have to feed some time :)

I have to appologise to John Mcadam as he actually took this picture of me with a common mudpig of 7lb 12oz though I deny giving it a kiss lol .