Matthew Perring recently shared the story of a six-fish hit of tench topped by a 9lb 6oz fish in Angling Times magazine. Interestingly, he used a classic roach bait to put the haul together, below he tells the full story...
“After all the cold winds and rain we’ve had over the past few weeks, I’ve found that the tench in many lakes are behaving strangely for the time of year – but by adopting a slightly unusual approach I had a great result during a recent session.
“Manor Farm Lake on the Linear Fisheries complex sees piles of boilies and hemp introduced every year, so when I visited a few weeks ago I fancied trying something different.
“Maggots and worms are incredibly popular and successful tench baits, but they hadn’t been working, so instead I opted for a truly classic bait… tares!
“Usually associated with big roach and chub, these particles almost resemble a cross between hemp and boilies, but unlike the latter, they don’t feed the fish up as quickly... and they’re certainly a lot cheaper too! They’re also a bait that the fish don’t see much of, and I flavoured mine with krill before introducing a bed of them, plus hemp, to a spot around 40 yards out, which was only a few feet wide and 6ft long and surrounded by thick weed.
“The swim I chose was on a bank that a south-westerly had been blowing into, but the wind swung round, and I ultimately ended up fishing off the back of a north-easterly.
“After giving the faithful worm kebab a try, I caught only pike – no fewer than 11 of them! So I switched to artificial casters fished on a T-rig, with a little PVA bag of casters alongside.
“Initially, I fed a mixture of hemp and tares, but once I switched to feeding neat tares the fishing got better! I reckon I fed a few kilos of them over the course of my stay, and landed six tench to 9lb 6oz, with three high ‘sevens’ in there as well.
“Because I was fishing such a tight spot, the tench fought like demons, diving deep into the weed after being hooked. I had to plunge the rod-tip beneath the surface as soon as I made contact, but the biggest fish still managed to lock me up solid. However, by putting the rod down and flicking the Baitrunner on, it soon swam out. It was a belting fish, that’ll be comfortably into double figures later in the season.
“Although the session was a bit of a strange one, it’s certainly given me faith in a new bait. I’m going to Horseshoe Lake at the weekend and will certainly be taking the tares!”
