May and June
My tench season this year didn’t exactly begin in the greatest fashion; the prolonged cold spring sapped a lot of my enthusiasm with even the sunny days in May being accompanied by cold winds – I just wasn’t feeling the love.
In previous seasons I’d started to catch fish in April, however this year most of my early sessions were, in tench terms, fruitless. Fishing short sessions in winter-like conditions I nailed a couple of nice bream up to 6lb and had tons of silver fish when I fished the feeder with a quiver tip, however it wasn’t until May when I had my first tench, a 3lb fish caught on a boilie one sunny afternoon.
That fish lifted my spirits a little but I know the mere and its moods and my enthusiasm was short lived as a few evenings later I was back down to earth with a bump. On that session I float fished corn and breadflake over hemp and boilies along the fringe of some lilies. Boilie rod – zip, float rod – zip, until I put casters on and then it was a roach a cast, so I persevered with the corn and bread without so much as the hint of a tinca.
On my way out of the car park the cows had gathered by the gate and they just wouldn’t move; I ran towards the gate shouting and screaming but they just stood there. I got closer, a fence separating us, they still didn’t move but one did burp approximately two feet from my face… I was effectively stuck so asked another angler to open the gate whilst I quickly drove out but even then they wouldn’t get out of the way, they just stood there in the road, licking my car windows ignoring my pathetic ‘Yeehas’ and ‘Yahs’ It’s because of incidents like this I now always eat beef whenever I eat out and I think the cows sense this, which is why they are so awkward. What they don’t realise is that this behaviour of theirs only serves to strengthen my own resolve…
I got back to the mere a few days later and it was 7°C when I arrived at 6am with a stiff northerly blowing. I opted for the same swim but with a different approach and first off I lobbed a method feeder out with popped-up corn, then dragged the rake through the proposed float line about a half dozen times before filling it in with a few pints of particles, alternating between corn, meat and maggot on the hook.
I immediately had loads of tentative little dips and lifts on the float and lost a small skimmer then at 7.15 I had a proper bite, the rod bent double and I was ‘in’… It was a tench – in the reeds to my left, then five seconds later 15 yards out to my right, I gave it a bit more beef and it was in the onion bag! Not a monster but at 5lb 1oz a fish I’d have killed for as a young lad, happy days!
I swapped the method rod about, playing about with different baits, but I had pretty much messed the mix up on arrival so it wasn’t playing ball and nothing much occurred for the next few hours. As far as conditions were concerned when the sun was out it was glorious, but the northerly wind kept pushing clouds across every five minutes or so and during those times it was much colder. At 9.30 I had another bite on the float, which resulted in a nice solid, fighting bream of about 5lb and that was that, I was home for 10.30.
It was a week or so before I fished the mere again, arriving at 5am to a misty, flat calm lake and the sun popping over the tree tops, really stunning and ‘lucky to be here’ type stuff. I tried an area I’d never fished before and cast the boilie rod 30 yards to my left towards some pads and did a good raking closer, followed by ‘pulting a load of particles over the top of the newly cleared area.
I got bites from the off on corn and several lift bites resulted in some nettable roach and bream and fishing maggots gave me rudd on the drop. Later on I changed tactics, dispensing with the float and going over the top of the particle with a semi-fixed balanced corn rig, sadly for nowt and as I reeled in to call it a day, a tench porpoised in my swim, which I found ‘dead funny’…
Before I left I had a quick look to my left as there are no actual swims in that area of the mere; despite there being a few acres of water, it’s very overgrown and swamp-like and after a phone call I had the ‘ok’ to do a bit of exploring and cut out an area to fish from. A few mornings later I was back again, waders on, wading stick in one hand, machete in the other.
Fifteen minutes in and I had only moved about 20 yards, the reeds were 7ft tall, the water knee deep and, at some point, I half expected to be pinned down by a lone VC sniper. I finally made the water’s edge but there was not enough terra firma to even consider placing a seat. “I could stand to fish I suppose?” I muttered, trying to convince myself that my time had been well spent, however further inspection revealed that there were many dead and submerged trees in the margins and a sunken fence that extended eight metres out into the lake. No way could I realistically fish for tench there and be in with a chance of getting a decent one out.
I trudged around a little more hoping to find a few square metres of solid ground with some open water in front but I was disappointed and, about an hour after I first set off, I begin the sweaty journey back to the car – but, as we all know, time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted…Yeah right!
A few days later I was back for a short evening session, thoughts of secret swims long gone. I arrived at 6.30pm and sat in a favoured peg with the wind full in my face. I went with a groundbait feeder/quiver combo with a maggot hookbait on one rod and the sleeper rod was a boilie fished against the lilies. I was keen to establish if the ‘regular casting and striking at anything’ approach that the quiver brings would bring me a change of fortune?
Regular casting brought me skimmers and roach, all netters, however not as many bites as I’d anticipated, then at 7.45 – strike, clunk, decent fish on! The rod doubled and then the fish was off all within a few seconds, a hook pull!
Disaster struck again when I hooked a fish on the next but one cast, it felt like a reasonable bream, however I ended up snagging some old line, which got stuck in the tip of my quiver meaning I couldn’t reel in. I ended up putting the rod down and handlining the fish in, whereupon it ended up on the other side of some rushes in 5-6ft of water where it duly shook itself off. After all this my rig was in a proper state so I started to tackle up again and sort out the mess – you can guess what happened next…
As I was tidying up the boilie rod ripped off, I got the fish close to hand but part of the same ****ing snagged line intervened again and at one point I landed a load of weed attached to the dead rig before I could even attempt to land the fish I had on! It was one almighty mess, but land that fish I did, a nice deep fish too, and the scores on the doors said 5lb 13oz. The swim was a right mess after all of that and I popped it back quickly without a picture.
I finally sorted the swim out, removed tens of metres of line and was gutted that it didn’t even have a lead or trendy feeder on the end to reward me for my trouble! Worst of all the last hour of the session was effectively ruined. I was pleased to get a decent fish out in just a few hours’ fishing, so I couldn’t complain in that respect but with such relatively short sessions when stuff like that happens it just pretty much puts the kibosh on the whole gig!
A few days later I fished for a few hours through the heat of the day using an inline maggot feeder on one rod and a boilie on the other in a swim which has history of throwing up the odd fish during bright conditions; sadly there was not a hint of a fish. After this session my planning began for what would be my final session of the month – an all nighter.
So…a few nights later I was back at 8pm with bedchair, bivvy, water, food, stove, kettle, blanket; with all this gear I was well out of my comfort zone and, worst of all, many of the comfy pegs were taken so by necessity I had to get the waders on, grab the machete and the weed rake and chop away some reeds and lilies to clear a swim.
I spodded out a load of mixed pellet, hemp and dead maggot into one area straight out in front of the swim and peppered the fringe of some nearby lilies to the left with boilies; a quick jaunt back to the car to get my brolly and bedchair, and both rods were out and fishing for about 9.30pm. One rod I fished with a method feeder and balanced corn, the other a semi-fixed single boilie set up.
At 9.45pm I had a small bream on the method rod and, just as the light started to fade properly at 10.30 – and just as I had put the kettle on – a 5lb bream fell to the same rod. Pot Noodle, fresh tea and several chocky biscuits for supper and I was under my blanket staring at the stars for about 11.30. By 1am it started to get chilly so I tucked myself well in; the night was clear but damp and you could literally see your shadow from the moon. A little later I got up to re-cast and re-bait and by torchlight I found I was surrounded by hundreds of slugs, black ones, yellow ones, grey ones, ‘orrible! They were munching away on bits of pellet I’d dropped.
I hoped to grab some sleep for a few hours so I would be fresh for the dawn feeding spell so at 2am I was happy to be dozing off when something started warbling and singing in the reeds less than 15 feet away. Yes, 2 o’****ing clock in the morning and a reed warbler was singing like he’d just come home pi**ed from an Everton derby win…I stomped about near the reeds, flailed my arms, shook the stems and cursed. I was that close I could probably have touched the bird if I could have seen it, but could I frighten it off? Nope, not a chance! I tried to ride it out and settle down but something inside me had snapped so I went back to the reeds again to try to scare him off…The cows must also be in on the act in some way, at least I convinced myself of that in my fragile mental state, exacerbated by sleep deprivation and, despite my pathetic attempts, the warbler just got louder and carried on, pretty much non-stop, for the next seven hours.
Dawn arrived but by then I was gone; totally depleted of any energy. At this time of morning I should have been proactive, making things happen but I was so tired and lethargic that instead I just festered on my bedchair, flitting in and out of semi-sleep. I accidentally caught a nice roach on the boilie rod just as I was eating my muesli, then the rain started…I sat it out for two more hours but I was not fishing, I was just ‘there’…
Night sessions always seem like a good idea at the time but when lack of sleep negatively affects your ability, or willingness, to do the right things I wonder if they are really worth the extra effort in preparation terms? Not to mention the extra gear which makes moving swims almost a non-starter and the negative effect on your sleep patterns and home life? I’m not at all convinced of their value.
I could/should have just wound my rods in and retired to the car for two or three hours, had a short sleep, a brew, and then gone about my business as usual; alternatively I could have just gone home at 10.30pm and got back for a 4.30am start the following morning; I’d certainly have got more sleep, may just have snared a tinca and would definitely have one less species on the ‘I hope they become extinct soon’ list!
Would things get any better in July? I’ll let you know how things progressed in the second installment.
