Tench at last!

Having spent nearly a month tracking down the tench at Hever Castle I have finally managed to catch a tench(and I think she is a cracker).

If you have read my previous articles you will have some idea of the amount of work I have put in at this tough water trying specifically to catch the tench.

This beautiful dark female fell to quiver tipped corn in a slowly worked up swim following a succession of reasonable roach and the odd skimmer bream (and a nice rudd which I have not caught to any size at Hever before).

  Tench at last!

The tench were spawning in earnest a week ago and this fish had obviously just finished as she was a bit thin and flabby around the middle. She weighed 5 1/2 lbs (what would she have weighed full of spawn?) and was generally in fine condition.

In my previous articles I had mentioned hooking into carp a few times and now I am not so sure these were all carp as these tench fight superbly and the first run when you hook them could easily be mistaken for a carp. I am going to beef up my end tackle a bit, this may mean less bream and other bits but if it means I can catch some more of these, yes please!

The rest of the session was pretty good as well with some nice roach coming steadily
 throughout the session along with some skimmers  as  well.

A roach in the hand is worth...........?

As you can see the roach are in superb condition and although not specimens they are not a bad size. This years roach are certainly bigger than I have caught at Hever before.

The only thing that spoilt the session was a large pike hat grabbed roach a couple of times as I reeled them in which disturbed the swim. (another pike gave me a bit of a shock when it picked up a boilie (freshwater mussel) on the ledger rod, a very gentle bite followed by a bream like fight until it reached the margins where it exploded into life showering me with water before predictably bitin through the line).

I am not going to stop now and knowing the tench are catchable has just encouraged me to fish for them more, I know there are bigger fish than this because I have seen them!

Will Kennedy

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