BIG FISH COLUMN: Cooler temperatures mean slower sport

A slight cooling off of temperatures during the past week brought exactly the same response from the fish with a slight slowing down of sport on most waters very evident; especially as far as tench were concerned.

It was not a complete shutdown of tench sport as a few good fish were still willing to feed, but the multiple catches of the species, which were becoming such a feature on some local pits, turned into more of a struggle with many anglers having to scratch around for bites where previously the fish seemed to be always on the feed.

The dominance of the feeder as the prime method of fishing for big tench these days is unquestioned, but plenty of good fish still get caught on the more traditional methods too and few approaches are more traditional than the lift float method and this was the tactic employed by Sam Robinson who fished a water close to his Ruscombe home last week.

The lift method is an incredibly sensitive technique which signals the bite by the float lifting up out of the water and this is achieved by fishing the float slightly overdepth and concentrating all, or at least most, of the weight on the deck. When the fish picks up the bait it dislodges the bulk shot causing the float to lift and the bite is pretty much unmissable!

Sam set up with a loaded waggler float on 6lb line with just a single AA shot a couple of inches away from a size 10 hook baited with a couple of grains of strawberry flavoured corn and presented it a little over a rod length out with a little and often loosefeed of brown crumb groundbait laced with corn and pellets.

After several slight nudges from small roach, Sam struck when his float lifted 'Polaris-like' out of the lake and connected with solid resistance which he immediately knew was a good tench.

"I'd had them from the pond to nearly 6lb in the past, but straight away I knew this was bigger," he told me, "It powered along the margins and out into deeper water but thankfully there is no weed yet so I just had to take my time."

It took the best part of five minutes to get the tench in the net and Sam weighed in at a new personal best weight of 6lb 4oz. Despite the fact the fish had disturbed the swim, it only took another 20 minutes to get a second bite with the result a tench of 4lb 14oz; a lovely brace of fish during a week when the going was tricky.

Although tench fishing slowed up slightly, the local carp continued to feed well with excellent returns still coming from the local commercial pools such as Royal Berkshire, Finches Farm and Pondwood with the Kennet Valley fisheries such as Theale all in good form for numbers of fish into double figures too. The pole and sprayed pellet is particularly effective, but if you are not into that style of fishing waggler, feeder or method will still get plenty of bites.

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