The Fishing Coach

Five days coaching with Connexions Slough this month assisted by Les Weller and it was so nice to have the sun on our backs again.

Twynersh Fishing Complex near Thorpe Park once again produced the goods - lots of roach, rudd, perch and bream were caught and none of the students failed to catch. Behaviour is always a problem with these kids and Les said it was harder work than some of the operations he carried out with the CID. On the whole they were not that bad, the advantage is that they all want to be there so we have an easier job than some school teachers.

I have been fishing a local gravel pit for the first time in fifteen years which is located alongside the M3 motorway. It can be a little noisy but you get used to it. My mate Bill Rushmer had mentioned that it held some big tench as well as some big bream and carp. It was the big tench that interested me as apparently they can be caught on the float in the margins along the motorway bank. The first two outings produced a blank and for the next couple of trips I fished in a bay facing the motorway and caught lots of smaller tench to six pounds but had to use a long range waggler or feeder, both methods exclude the use of my favourite centrepin reel.

I then went back to the motorway bank having broken my duck on the water and went biteless for two more days. I tried different times and baits and then finally spotted some small bubbles about three rod lengths out. A plummet revealed fifteen feet of water, too deep to comfortably float fish at that range without resorting to a sliding float. I decided to feeder fish the swim on the next outing and two days later I arrived with a pair of Tony Fordham kevlar Sportex 1 1/4 lbs test curve rods. I like these rods for feeder fishing for tench as unlike most of my rods they are fast action rather than through action. This gives improved accuracy - so important when fishing a feeder. Fixed spool reels loaded with seven pound breaking strain line completed the set up. Both were set up with open ended feeders filled with a groundbait mix with hemp, casters, sweetcorn and red maggots.

I knew it would be a long wait so I used bite alarms and light bobbins, fishing red maggots and sweetcorn on one rod and casters on the other. I was right, five biteless hours passed until the left hand bobbin lifted slowly and the bite alarm sounded. The strike was met with a solid resistance but no unstoppable first run. I decided it must be one of the big bream and was happy to settle for that as I bullied the fish out of the deep water towards the drop off shelf. I remember thinking “Six and a half pound hook length is more than enough for any stillwater bream this side of the British Record” Then the fish came out of the deep water and rolled on the lip of the shelf,it wasn’t the bronze flank of a bream but the olive flank and big “paint brush” tail of a tench that met my eyes.

I barely had time for the obligatory expletive before the tench turned and fled taking about twenty yards on its first run - all of a sudden I was no longer bullying but rather, being bullied. I was too intimidated by the size of the tail and flank that I had seen to really enjoy the fight and I was worried about what I had done to the hook hold of that size 14 when I had tried to bully the fish. Soon the fish came back to the shelf and I was able to slip the landing net under it. I carried it straight to the unhooking mat that had been dry so long on that motorway bank and as I unfolded the net I was amazed at the size of the fish.

Remember here that I was brought up on tench that were “Angling Times material” at six pounds and the British Record was eight pounds eight ounces (early ‘70 s for the youngsters). This fish looked huge - a ten pounder I hoped. In fact she weighed in at nine pounds four ounces, my biggest by nearly two pounds.

I looked around to find someone to take the photograph for me but found I was alone on the lake. Into a sack she went, tethered in three feet of water under the shade of a bush. I started making phone calls but everyone was either not answering or miles away. I eventually went out onto the road and flagged down a passing cyclist, probably terrifying him in the process. The photos taken, she was released after no more than ten minutes in the sack.

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