For many more years than I care to remember tench have been my favourite early season species and I always spend a vast amount of time every Spring and Summer trying to outwit these beautiful and enigmatic fish.

One of the most appealing things that I find about tench fishing is the infinite variety in which I can actually fish for them. There is a never-ending stream of tricks to try and with such a vast array of tactics and techniques to draw upon, tench fishing constantly keeps my mind churning over like a runaway washing machine. There is never time to become bored whilst fishing for big Tincas!

Limited times
Float fishing has to be one of the most delightful ways of catching tench and although it can also be the most frustrating of methods, given half a chance, it is still the technique I will jump at using. On the big fish waters that I usually target, I do limit float fishing to specific times, since staring at a little red dot for long periods without any sign of tenchy action can be really hard work. I reserve my float fishing for when I know there are tench in the swim; obvious things like fish rolling or fizzing give the game away and provided other factors are suitable, this is the time I will reach for the float gear.

Another of those factors is the range at which I am fishing and basically, the closer the better. Since deep margins make cracking tench swims, I normally end up fishing spots like this if at all possible and float-fishing is then a distinct probability at some stage during a session. The weather also has a say in any float fishing decisions. A strong wind makes life difficult with undertows dragging float tackle around, but I do like some movement on the water and a chop on the surface certainly improves the chances of a fish no matter what method you are using. Having said that, a flat calm summer’s dawn is a superb time to be float watching. Bubbles dimpling the smoking surface with the float swaying tantalisingly as big tench brush the line has to be the height of suspense!

There are many ways of tackling tench with float gear and it doesn’t have to be particularly sophisticated to be successful. A friend of mine, Malcomb Swinfen, regularly catches far more tench than I do on the float and he is a real old traditionalist, still using cane rods, centrepins and crow quills laying at half cock!  He uses a sliding float to cope with the deep margins, often fishing anything up to 15 feet of water, the float stopped using a water knot tied with 4lb powergum. This can be slid up and down the line without damaging it and can be removed at the end of the session by pulling both ends of the knot until it breaks free.

Big problem
One big problem whilst float fishing for tench is that of foulhooking. With big fish upending and fanning those paddle like fins close to the line, false bites can be a real nightmare. I don’t think there is any way of totally preventing foulhooking, but one method that I like when fishing in very close is to use a tiny piece of peacock quill and adding just enough weight to sink it. I adjust the float so that just a tiny slither is showing above the surface. This indicates that the line is tight between float and shot and the only way the float can now rise is if a fish picks up the bait, followed by the weight. I make myself ignore any dips on the float and will only strike if the float pops right up and lays flat.

This method certainly cuts down dramatically on the number of foulhooked fish, but it is limited to fishing in really close. When I have to cast further, I like using a Drennan Crystal Insert Waggler and adopt a similar approach, shotting the insert down and waiting for a good lift before striking. In a heavy chop, I choose a bulb-topped Windbeater and my most memorable catch of tench on the float came whilst using one of these lovely inventions. It was a rare day when those gravel pit tench decided to really play ball. Several times that morning the Windbeater rose majestically out of the wavelets, waggled about briefly and then slid rapidly away. My big fat lobworms were proving irresistible to the tench and I caught several beauties to over 9lb.

Despite float fishing being the most pleasing way to catch tench, I have never really found it the most effective. Today’s self-hooking rigs are so much more efficient, although for many long years before those kind of tactics became universally popular, I fished for tench by legering in a much more traditional manner.  And these good old tactics caught me plenty of fish as well.

Running link
A very simple running link ledger was my standard rig, a lead link of some six inches and a hooklink around eighteen. This set-up actually demanded that the angler sit beside his rods, concentrating on the bobbin, which was hung about two feet below the rod. It could be very frustrating, with numerous lifts of the bobbin indicating feeding fish that were constantly mouthing the bait. Although every so often it would sail up towards the butt ring and I would strike back into a tench.

I used to find, and still do, that hitting into a fish like that is so much more satisfying than casually picking the rod up after a tench has hooked itself on a bolt rig. In fact, that is why I still use this old fashioned kind of set up even today. Not as much as I should do perhaps, but now and again I feel a hankering to drift back in time and experience some rather more active and I reckon more enjoyable fishing.

Before the advent of boilies and rubber baits, my favourite three tench baits were cheesepaste, luncheon meat and bread crust. I fished these over a groundbait mixture of stale bread, wetted down and stiffened with bran and layers mash. That is not a combination I would consider using now, but those three hookbaits are certainly still very effective. And the fact that tench rarely see any of them these days is a damn good reason to keep using them!

Having said that, these old tactics and baits are never going to beat the way that most people fish for tench today. There is no doubt about it, self-hooking rigs are the tops when it comes to effectiveness and they re certainly where I place my faith most of the time on difficult waters. Float fishing and using running ledgers are wonderful ways of fishing, but on a rock-hard gravel pit where one bite a day may be the norm, there is a good chance that you would miss that rare bite using those tactics. I know that my modern methods convert most bites into fish on the bank and although that’s not all that counts with my fishing, it is rather important!

Malcomb loves sniping at today’s modern tactics, claiming that it must be stupendously boring sitting all day looking at a brace of bobbins. But as I am constantly retorting, the truth is absolutely nothing like that! There’s so much involved in this style of fishing that my mind is a constant whirl of activity, especially if I am not catching. There is so much variety behind the maligned practice of bolt rigging that old Crabtree Swinfen would be amazed at how fascinating it is if he peered out from behind his creel sometimes!

Lazy approach
I must admit that a lot of specialist anglers are very lazy and blinkered in their approach to fishing, but fortunately I used to spend time with some top class match anglers whilst photographing features. These guys could really show many specialists the way home and I learned a lot from them, not least of their controlled impatience! Never content to sit out the duration of a match struggling for bites, they would be constantly experimenting if bites weren’t forthcoming. Experimentation is their byword and it is something that I really try hard to emulate these days.

Those wretched non-anglers who always come out with the hackneyed phase ’oh, you fishermen must be so patient’, simply haven’t got a bloody clue! They certainly haven’t watched me fishing – even on ultra-hard waters I am constantly fighting the urge to change this, mess with that, even though I often know that I am already using a tried and tested rig. Waters like this aren’t really places to do a lot of experimenting, especially first time stuff, but that still doesn’t stop me completely and I often end the day being surrounded by the detritus of discarded tackle that I have been chopping and changing constantly.

Tiny hooks?
A lot of these changes won’t be enormous, but I have often found that what appears to be a ridiculously minor alteration to the rig can have amazing effects. Another day spent with a match angler many years ago really brought home this fact to me. I was in Cornwall to photograph a feature on roach fishing and when the guy showed me his rig at the start of the day, I must admit I thought his initial statement was rather extreme. The set up terminated in a 22 hook and he claimed that on this size catching fish wouldn’t be a problem but if he upped to a 20, then he would barely get a bite. 

Naturally I humoured him and was delighted to see him catch a netful of fish in the next two hours enabling me to take plenty of shots for the feature. He caught all these fish by placing the rig right next to the bankside reeds but eventually he got too close, snagged the hook and pulled for a break. That gave him the opportunity to prove his earlier statement so he tied on a size 20 hook. And immediately stopped catching!

Over the next half hour he landed just one solitary roach by which time he reckoned he’d made his point. Back on went a size 22 hook and instantly it was business as usual, every put-in producing a fish. I had never seen such an amazing demonstration of how such a miniscule change could have such a dramatic effect on results and I keep that extraordinary day in mind whenever I go fishing.

All this experimenting may sound like hard work but I reckon it is part of the reason I have stuck with fishing all these years. For someone with a very low boredom threshold, fishing offers so many variations that the fascination really is endless and tench fishing certainly offers plenty of variety in all its aspects. Even so, when it comes to rigs I have developed a handful of old faithfuls which form the backbone to my tenching. Most revolve mainly around feeders in one form or another. Out of the many I have tried, the open ended inline feeder has probably caught me more tench than any other bolt rig set up and I have usually got at least one of these deadly arrangements sitting on the lake bed.

I make my own in-liners from a length of tubing used in the club-carrying section of golf bags. It is just the right diameter and is already black, although I do camouflage it with brown and green matt paint after I have finished making it. I cut away a rectangle and Araldite a 2oz lead into place in the gap. The slide-on feeder leads are my choice as I ram a length of rigid rig tube into the slot with a few millimetres extending either end of the feeder. To one end I superglue a tulip bead into which I will eventually pull the hooklink swivel. 

Apart from the standard 2oz design with a feeder length of about two and a half inches, I always carry a selection of other sizes, both length wise and weight wise. The weight I use will depend on the type of bottom over which I am fishing over. A soft silt persuading me to go for a lighter feeder and visa versa. The volume of the feeder I choose depends on conditions and fish activity. Under favourable conditions, a big feeder carrying plenty of loosefeed would be my first choice, but a much smaller one would be best to start with if things didn’t look so promising.

Short hooklength
After threading the 10lb Fox Soft Steel main line through the feeder, I tie on a short hooklength. I normally start off with one about two inches long, usually constructed from 10lb braid. Drennan’s Micro Braid is as good as any and I will increase the strength if I am fishing particularly snaggy water. This is also a consideration when choosing the hook pattern. In reasonably clear water I initially reach for Kamasan Sedge Hooks, but sometimes also experiment with Drennan Super Specialists if I want to increase the strength or reduce the size. Or both.

I straighten or even slightly inturn what is initially the out-turned eye of a Sedge hook.  Unlike some hooks, which are too well tempered to do so without snapping, Super Specialists amongst them, you can gently bend a Sedge using a pair of small flat nose pliers. Grip the eye and bend a millimetre or two down the shank, not right on the original bend which will snap. When using braid and a knotless knot, I fancy a slightly inturned eye flips the hook and is more likely to prick a fish.

Now that the magnificent rubber casters have become one of my favourite baits for tench, I usually begin a session using a size 14 Sedge hook coupled with three casters. This combination allows the hook to just sink, the baits hovering above it. The hook sits point down below the casters and I wonder whether part of the reason these artificial baits are so effective on this method is because they hide the hook so well? A size 16 Sedge takes two rubber casters to achieve the same effect and I will even try using single baits on size 18 or 20 Super Specialists. I have had some remarkable improvements in fortune after changing from double to single caster, another example of how very small changes can make significant differences. 

Other changes you can make to this type of rig can be in the length of hooklength, the material used (braid or mono) whether you fish the bait on the bottom, popped-up slightly from a longish hooklength or even perhaps straight up off the feeder. The latter set up I have found to be particularly deadly, catching me several double-figure tench on real maggots from Ringwoods’ Half Pit in the days before rubber baits. 

Despite the extraordinary results I have now had on rubber baits, I certainly don’t neglect real ones, because sometimes the tench much prefer a live, wriggling grub. I will often experiment with a combination of rubber casters and live maggots. As usual, I will be chopping and changing until the right set up is found for the day.

Another favourite feeder rig, this time using a cage feeder, is a paternoster set up. Over bottoms with lots of debris the in-liner can sink into the rubbish and the hooklength is likely to become snagged. A paternoster rig will enable you to position the hooklength lightly across the bottom and with a balanced bait, it should rest delicately on top of any weed or silt.

I usually prefer a short hooklength of some two inches with the feeder link slightly longer, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, I will experiment with different lengths and materials. I have caught lots of tench with hooklengths of around six feet, the thought behind that being that it gives the fish plenty of  line to move off without feeling any resistance until they bang up against the heavy feeder, then it is too late. Using hooklengths that long has been successful enough to suggest that this theory works, but I must admit that a short hooklengths has often been even more effective.

At least that can be the case on one day. Go back the next and the tench may well have changed their feeding ways and you’ll have to start experimenting once again. But is that not the beauty of this fishing game. Who would want it to be totally predictable? Tench are notorious for being fickle and they will certainly keep you on your toes, but one of the main attractions of the species is that there are so many different ways of outwitting them. Anything from flicking out a tiny quill off the rod tip to lobbing out a heavy lead eighty yards.

I have only scratched at the surface here and the world of tench fishing is so infinitely varied that it is enough to keep most anglers fascinated for life. They really are the most absorbing of fish and with this coming Spring, I will surely be out there once again pitting my wits against these canny creatures. No doubt I will have to put my little grey cells into overdrive to persuade them to visit my net, but as I can’t overemphasise enough, the variety of fishing that results from this simply cannot be beaten. Tench fishing is definitely the best of the best!

This article was originally published in Coarse Angling Today