SPECIMEN angler Tony Gibson recently shared the story of an incredible haul of 21 tench, topped by a 9lb 5oz fish in Angling Times magazine.
Here's how his single spot tactics helped him take this memorable haul...
“When tench fishing, a common tactic is to find a few fancied areas to target – maybe one in open water, and another in the edge. It’s something I’ve done myself in the past.
“However, lakes just seem to be getting weedier and weedier, which restricts you massively. But I’ve found that selecting just one good spot and putting all your eggs in one basket can really produce. What’s more, it allows you to experiment with hookbaits and find out which is the most effective on the day. That’s exactly what I did on a recent trip to a large Cambridgeshire gravel pit.
“With the relaxing of Covid restrictions, I was able to enjoy my second bivvy session of 2021 and get back to some proper session fishing.
“Even this early in the season, the water was still pretty weedy, but I took my time to find a reasonably clear area 40 yards from the bank. It was slightly raised, maybe a foot off the rest of the lakebed, and seemed a good place to target.
“Rather than find a couple of lesser areas to try as well, I put all three rods on this one spot. This allowed me to fish well in a focused area and concentrate my feed, rather than spread it about.
“I used a spod to regularly introduce a mix of pellets ranging from 2mm to 6mm in size, particles and pulses, whole 12mm boilies, chopped boilies, and a handful of tiger nuts, all soaked in Liquid Worm Carp Food before being spodded out.
“One of the big benefits of fishing like this is that you can try different hookbaits and quickly figure out which ones the fish really want.
“I started off with a 15mm Complex-T pop-up on one rod and a standard 12mm bottom bait of the same flavour tipped with plastic corn on the second, while on the third rod I opted for a balanced tiger nut.
“The action came in spells over the session, but I managed a fantastic haul of 21 tench, ranging from 5lb right up to 9lb 5oz. I reckon the bites came as groups of tench came back to feed on the spot.
“Any rain or hail killed the action, but when bites did come I realised that the boilie hookbaits were far outscoring the tiger nuts. I find that tigers can single out the bigger fish, but on this session it wasn’t happening so by switching to a boilie on all rods I managed to capitalise when fish were in the swim. It was a great start to the tench season, and I’d urge anyone to try similar, focused tactics when faced with a weedy lake.”