Big Fish Column: Flying start to spring season gathers pace

The flying start to the spring season continued last week with the quality of tench fishing around the area continuing to improve and the commercial pools providing plenty of rod-bending action too.

On the tench front, Maidenhead's Phil Cousins built on the excellent start with the species which I reported in the column last week with another visit to the Twyford venue which produced an early season fish of 7lb 4oz for him.

Phil targeted the same swim on the fishery and made an early start with the maggot feeder to tempt a plump female fish of 7lb 14oz along with a couple of smaller specimens around the 5lb mark. Phil fished bunches of red maggots on a size 12 hook to 6lb line to tempt the fish.

Also getting amongst the early tench was Woodley's Ron Davies who spent a day on one of the Reading & District stillwaters with the groundbait feeder to take a brace of fish scaling 5lb 12oz and 6lb. Ron used a feed mix of brown crumb and crushed hemp mixed with corn and halibut pellets to pull the fish with two strawberry flavoured grains of sweetcorn on a size 10 hook to 6lb mainline with a 5lb hooklength. Both tench came within minutes of one another shortly after first light, but a third slipped the hook later in the session and killed the swim.

Tench have started to make a more regular appearance on the Theale Fishery although this prolific commercial pool is increasingly dominated by carp. Father and son team of Robin and Harry Reynolds visited the venue during the Easter holidays and used different approaches to achieve the same result in the shape of 100lb bags of fish.

Robin opted for the more traditional float fishing technique with a 4BB waggler fished just a rod length out on 6lb line with a 4lb 12oz hooklength and a size 14 hook baited with a soft pellet hookbait. Feed was in the shape of little cloud groundbait laced with a few pellets and a handful of hemp.

Thirteen-year-old Harry opted for the method feeder with Halibut pellet method mix and 6lb line straight through to a size 12 hook and alternated his baits between soft pellets and corn.

Robin started to catch small carp and the occasional tench from the off, but it took Harry's swim a little longer to switch on but when it did it seemed to produce the slightly better stamp of fish including a few carp threatening the double-figure mark.

At the end of the session, both anglers reckoned their catches were approaching the 100lb mark and they included carp to around 10lb, tench to 5lb and bream to 4lb.

We are still a long way off the start of the river season but with temperatures climbing rapidly we are not far away from barbel spawning time and with fears regarding the long-term reproduction and recruitment potential of the species in so many rivers, the Barbel Society in conjunction with the Environment Agency have teamed up to undertake a national survey of barbel spawning sites.

The survey aims to gather dates, times and conditions of spawning activity throughout the country and to build a national register with the longer-term aim of ensuring a degree of protection. There are a number of local sites where barbel activity is easily observed so if you are a river watcher and want to take part check out www.barbelsociety.co.uk

Any anglers wishing to report catches may contact me on 07780 755138. I may be e-mailed on ian@bigfishtrail.com