We have certainly been blessed with a mild winter this time round and I wondered if the tench in a local shallow lake would be feeding early this year. All of nature seems to have been put out of phase by the unusual warm winter and it was with some hope that I arranged to visit the private tench lake in Surrey. As only one bank was fishable I opted for my favourite swim, even though it meant fishing into a cold strong wind.

I set up two Harrison stepped up float rods both with centrepins loaded with six pound line. Both rigs were set up to fish wagglers but one had a size fourteen hook for maggot and hooker pellets and the other had a size eight for a special bait. The latter hook was a new pattern I was trying, being lighter in the wire than most size eight hooks commonly sold for the carp hauling market, the Kamasan 983 is a very strong hook but made of finer wire to give lightness and a very sharp point. The barb is very small and easily crushed down.

kamasan 983 hooks

The special bait was prawns which I knew had been sucessful there in the past but I chose a new twist - I fed chopped “Tesco frozen value prawns” but I was going to fish bits of king prawn on the hook. The size of the hook also gave me an option of fishing a sizeable lump of paste.

I was surprised to see that my favourite lilly patch had not totally died out during the winter and this saved me looking for the sunken remains with a plummet. I fed the chopped prawns with hemp to one side of it and maggots, hemp and small pellets to the other.

Most of the bites came to the pieces of king prawn and although I missed more than my share due to the problems caused by the strong wind, I ended the day with four tench and a bonus bream, the latter took a small hooker pellet. Not bad for the last week in February.

First tench of 2007

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