Early signs indicate excellent spring season

The commercial pools continue to lead the way in terms of catches but with temperatures holding up well, the slower-to-warm gravel pits are improving fast and catches of tench and bream last week were very encouraging.

As far as tench fishing is concerned we are still at least a month away from the very best of the fishing - and indeed the biggest fish - but early signs are very encouraging and the capture last week of an excellent early season fish of 7lb 14oz to Marlow angler Terry Smith gave an indication that we could be in for a bumper start.

Unlike many of the early tench which have shown so far Terry was actually targeting the species - as opposed to catching one whilst carp fishing  - and set up a couple of light feeder rods with 8lb main line through to 6lb fluorocarbon hooklengths and size 10 hooks on one of his local pits.

With small cage feeders filled with a groundbait mix of Van den Eynde Expo and brown crumb laced with hemp, maggots, corn and pellets Terry built up a small bed of bait at a range of some 40m and fished a corn hookbait on one rod and a corn and maggot cocktail on the other.

Dawn is prime time for tench throughout much of the summer but early season fish can switch on a little later and after starting at first light it was a couple of hours before Terry had his first indications of activity in the swim with firstly a fish rolling over the baited area and then a line bite on the right hand rod.

Five minutes later a steady take on the same rod brought solid resistance and after a short but powerful fight he netted the big fish.

Topping up the swim with fresh bait brought renewed activity and a second fish of around the 5lb mark followed soon after and Terry completed his session with a hat-trick in the shape of a 5lb 12oz fish.

Interestingly Terry noted that all of the fish took the corn and maggot hookbait as opposed to straight corn - if my early tench sessions in previous seasons are anything to go by then leaving out the corn altogether and concentrating just on maggots may have brought an even better response!

On the commercial pools there has been tench activity too and Theale in particular has been turning up a few amongst the usual carp.

The venue has been in decent shape for the past couple of weeks with both waggler and feeder tactics picking up numbers of carp to around the 8lb mark in bags to around the 75lb mark.

For bigger carp Royal Berkshire remains in good shape with small chunks of meat down the edge working particularly well.

On the larger venues carp are increasingly active and big fish are beginning to come to the bank with increasing regularity with zig rigs and bright pop ups effective.

Cookham's Andy Bailey was one angler who put zigs to good use on a recent trip to the prolific Thorpe Lea fishery where a foam hookbait fished just a foot below the surface with a regular input of slow-sinking spod mix over the top accounted for 12 carp to 19lb 4oz.

The fishery is always worth a few bites whatever the conditions and at present the fish are really active just below the surface as soon as the sun is out.

It will probably all go wrong ñ it usually does when I stick my neck out ñ but at present itís shaping up for an excellent spring season.

Any anglers wishing to report catches may contact me on 07780 755138 or ian@bigfishtrail.com