Last week in between coaching sessions I decided that I needed some tench fishing away from my usual coaching haunts. I chose to visit Bury Hill Fisheries and fish the main lake as a result of an email from Bury Hill full of glowing reports of feeding tench. The first of May found me on the long bank of the old lake just after seven thirty armed with two light carp rods and a steeped up float rod, intending to fish any combination in pairs. The day ticket for two rods was £17, which I thought a little steep but the old lake is a very pleasant environment in which to fish and I have had some nice tench in the past.
One of the legering rods was set up with a semi fixed heavy open ended feeder with a short hook length, bolt rig style and the bait was a hair rigged 10mm. Source boilie from Dynamite Baits on a size 10 hook. The feeder was filled with the same small boilies and ground bait. The second leger rod had a much lighter open ended feeder on a paternoster link, with a three feet hook length and a size fourteen hook. This rig was fished in conjunction with maggots.
I fished the float rod with a waggler and a bunch of maggots on the bottom about two rod lengths out next to some lillies. I put a bed of groundbait next to the lillies first thing, intending to leave the float fishing for later and filled the feeder on the first rod with boilies and groundbait. I made eight or ten casts with this rod to the tip of a patch of lillies about twenty five yards away, filling the feeder each time, to put down a bed of bait.
The groundbait was a mix of two parts Expo to one part Marine Pellet Groundbait and two parts brown crumb. Hemp, pellets, sweetcorn and dead maggots were added to the mix.
I cast out the first rod with the semi fixed rig and as I was filling the lighter feeder on the other rod the bobbin shot to the first ring and I was playing a bream about two pounds with the boilie, still on its hair hanging from the side of it’s mouth. As bream were not my target I decided to rest this side of the swim and try the maggot feeded on the other side. No bites were forthcoming here, so I decided to float fish.
Bream nearly every cast both on the float and on the legered boiles, I must have had twenty five up to about four pounds but no tench. I was able to unhook most of them in the water from the edge of the fishing platform to cause them the least possible stress and avoid coating myself, my landing net and unhooking mat in bream slime. I have never been a fan of stillwater bream but I suppose it is better than blanking!
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