As I mentioned in my previous article I have been reduced to fishing short sessions this summer due to trying to organise my wedding at the end of August. Because of my lack of time to commit to my fishing this summer I decided to concentrate on just one water (not that I do not sneak off to fish other waters occasionally) the first river section at Hever Castle.

This section of the River Eden flows past the Estate of Hever Castle and flows into the lake that dominates the valley at this point. The river was widened many years ago and has been dredged a number of times to remove the inevitable build up of silt that occurs as the river slows. I cannot think of a prettier setting to while away a few hours engaged in the hobby that captivates us all. Due to the excessive silting of some areas of this section in general depths do not exceed four or five feet and the water can be and often is gin clear. The weed that flourishes in this shallow clear water can be a problem at times and the growth of lilies is prodigious and as a result the amount of natural food is huge. Couple this with a relatively low density of fish and you know this a hard water to master, but I like a challenge.

Realistically targetable species that inhabit the water include roach, tench, carp, perch, pike but the dominant species is bream, these grow quite large although not to specimen proportions and tend to move in small shoals (although very large shoals are regularly seen layered up through the clear water) or even singularly.

I have fished the venue for a few years rarely targeting this section of the river often preferring the long walk to the lake with mixed success. This year   I decided that I would attempt to catch tench from this stretch and the majority of the fishing I have undertaken has been with that in mind although I have not as yet achieved my goal I feel I am getting closer.

On the opening day of the season I always try and fish the lake at Hever and this year was no exception but since then I have concentrated on the river. My first session was spoilt by the amount of weed that I encountered both on the surface flowing slowly through the swim building up on lines and on the bottom. Almost every cast resulted in floats being dragged out of position due to the weed and baits coming back coated in filamentous algae. So out came the weed drag, I selected a few swims which I thought due to there position would be sheltered from the surface weed flowing down the river and dragged them clean. One swim I repeatedly dragged to ensure it was spotless and the others received a light raking to remove the worst of the bottom weed, following this a period of one week of pre-baiting ensued before I fished for the first time in my newly prepared swims.

Nothing except some larger than average roach fell to everything I put in front of them. Carp also picked up my bait on two occasions, which certainly put a bend in my light float outfit. Carp two, angler nil. Disappointed was an understatement, but I continued to bait every other night and fish as often as I could. The bream finally showed a couple of sessions later but I struggled (still struggle) to catch more than one as the shoal enters the swim when you receive instant bites and then exit the swim rapidly as soon as a fish is hooked. Over time I caught quite a few bream usually one or two a session (on one occasion four fell in two hours). The carp started to become a nuisance with at least one a session being hooked................ and lost. I enjoyed this spell of fishing however it was not getting me towards my goal of tench. I tried using small boilies in my pr-bait mixes to see if they would respond to those, no improvment just more takes from carp (I think I chose the wrong species this year). Worms were tried still no tench although it did provide some interesting sport with a 6 lb pike who got hooked in the scissors.

This is where I have got to now in the first week of July, with no joy with the tench I am moving swims to try and find them, I think searching the deeper water for features is the way forward and maybe trying fishing tighter to the beds of lilies, We will see.

I will keep you informed of my progress, if anyone out ther can help me with experience of fishing this section of the river please come and find me and share your wisdom.

Will Kennedy