Every angler in the UK is familiar with tench, with their olive green appearance and dogged fighting abilities, they are a firm favourite amongst the nations coarse anglers. Many will also be aware of the more ornamental golden variety of tench too, but very few anglers will have ever even heard of the blue variety, let alone caught one.
There are only a handful of venues in the country that have them stocked, one of which is Tench Lake at Anglers Paradise in Devon. On a recent holiday to the well known fishery, Daniel Skinner managed to bank one of these incredibly rare strains of tench, which also won him the Fish of the Week award during his stay.
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"I've been visiting Anglers Paradise for the last 18 years, and while I do enjoy my match fishing, it's nice to go down there and just enjoy some pleasure fishing. It is nice getting a few bites and spending quality time on the bank with my dad, Alan," Daniel explained.
"When I visit, I prefer fishing the orfe and tench lake as it’s full of weird and wonderful fish. You genuinely never really know what’s going to take your bait, and fishing doesn’t get much more exciting than that!"
Having fished the lake on previous trips, Daniel chose a swim covered in lily pads, knowing from experience that the resident tench often seek sanctuary there. Using simple float fishing tactics with maggots, casters, and groundbait, he picked his way through a number of small perch before finally hooking his first tench of the day.
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"While perch aren’t my main target, the lake is quite low in stock, and I believe any fish activity can help draw in the bigger ones."
"After catching around 6lb of these smaller fish, the tench began to feed and before long, between me and my dad, we’d landed a few golden tench up to 5lb and even one of the rare blue tench that inhabit the lake."
"I have caught a few of these blue tench before, all from Anglers Paradise. There used to be a few lakes down here that had them stocked, but your best chance is definitely from the ore and tench lake," he said.
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Speaking with owner Zenia Drury-Gregorek, she explained how and why the tench were introduced to the lake in the first place — and how they have flourished ever since.
"They're awesome fish, very unusual and when we saw them available a few years ago we just had to stock some into our lakes," she told us.
"We have them mostly stocked in our Specimen Tench & Orfe Lake and they get caught quite regularly in amongst the golden and green variety, not many anglers know what they are until we inform them."
"They behave exactly like tench do, and get caught on the same baits, but we do get an occasional blue tench caught off the surface."
"I'm not sure how many fisheries actually contain this blue strain of tench, and whilst the more ornamental fish aren't to everyones liking, they certainly add variety to those who like to catch different fish."
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