The North's Biggest Tench
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markcw
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Lymm AC have a water saying bream to 6lb and tench to 4lb in it.
It's true... there is....one of each
, All the other bream are skimmers to around 3lb and not many upto that weight either.
The tench average around 10oz , then the odd one around a couple of pound.
The bad one
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Chris, as Mark says, and I don't want to turn this into a WAA thread, the two waters do have double figure tench in them even today. The third which I'm not going to name other than say Mark has got it right in one of his posts, does also have doubles that get caught in it. But because of idiosyncrasies of the water, you only get about 3 weeks to have a crack at catching one. Or as Graham Marsden has called it many time in the past in articles "Duffers Fortnight!" Then they are gone until the next year.
A quick story from the 80s on one of the Chesh/Shrops meres. I fished this mere for over 20 years in total for it bream and tench. It was around the middle of the decade 85-6 and I had many 10s if not several 100 of tench from it, but the best I ever caught was 6 12. and the best I knew coming out of it was a massive 7 03. Then one Saturday evening a guy and his lad fish the other bank caught two tench within minutes of each other that I could see were big fish even at 100 yards distance. The guy then appears in my swim asking me have I any scales. Asking why, he says we've got two tench mine 8 12 and my lad's 9 08 on my scales. good grief them are big fish, in fact, never heard of any bigger than 7 03. I’ll come round with you to see these monsters. I’ll be honest, I thought he’d mis weighed them. Off we trot and he say you weigh them just in case I got it wrong. So I did and recorded the same weights he had. I congratulated him and his son for getting the best pair of fish that I knew of out of the mere.
As I knew probably 95% of the lads that fished the mere, they were stunned that it had thrown up tench of that size. Thankfully, the guy and his son sent a picture of the two fish into Angling Times and from the photos those who knew the mere, knew the swim and could see they were very big fish indeed.
The moral of the story being we might think we know how big the fish are in a water, but really we don't!
A quick story from the 80s on one of the Chesh/Shrops meres. I fished this mere for over 20 years in total for it bream and tench. It was around the middle of the decade 85-6 and I had many 10s if not several 100 of tench from it, but the best I ever caught was 6 12. and the best I knew coming out of it was a massive 7 03. Then one Saturday evening a guy and his lad fish the other bank caught two tench within minutes of each other that I could see were big fish even at 100 yards distance. The guy then appears in my swim asking me have I any scales. Asking why, he says we've got two tench mine 8 12 and my lad's 9 08 on my scales. good grief them are big fish, in fact, never heard of any bigger than 7 03. I’ll come round with you to see these monsters. I’ll be honest, I thought he’d mis weighed them. Off we trot and he say you weigh them just in case I got it wrong. So I did and recorded the same weights he had. I congratulated him and his son for getting the best pair of fish that I knew of out of the mere.
As I knew probably 95% of the lads that fished the mere, they were stunned that it had thrown up tench of that size. Thankfully, the guy and his son sent a picture of the two fish into Angling Times and from the photos those who knew the mere, knew the swim and could see they were very big fish indeed.
The moral of the story being we might think we know how big the fish are in a water, but really we don't!
sam vimes
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Quite true, but claiming fish of a size that have never actually been reliably recorded from a fishery is a different kettle of fish entirely. Sadly, I've seen a few fisheries in the press where it would be being kind to suggest that some tall tales have been told by somebody. Never really knowing, and pleasant surprises, are part of the joy of fishing. Those with vested interests blagging is one of the downsides.
One of my favourite tall tales was about a fishery of my youth. It was an old brick pit farm pond. Full of stunted rudd and roach with the odd half decent tench and carp. I've heard lots of tales about it over the years. Sadly, it changed ownership many years ago and was turned into yet another muddy hole. What might have been in the 80s is irrelevant now. The tall tales revolved around mutterings of big carp. It was reputed to have thrown up the odd thirty pounder in the days when a Yorkshire twenty would have been newsworthy. The pond was so small that people could tell whoever they liked and no one would believe it. I saw two different fish just over 30lb come out of the place. People still don't believe it many years later. Once in a blue moon, I come across someone 50+ that doesn't look at you like they are fitting you up for a straightjacket. When that happens, you know they know.
dalesman
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Wish I could find a fishery in North Yorks for a bit Tench fishing. One fish in 50 years of fishing, I have never caught.
John Aston
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Try Ripon Racecourse lake (Ripon Piscs) which has very big tench in nice surroundings - it can be slow sport though . Or Queen Mary's Ponds, also at Ripon - Bradford No1 AA . Various commercials in the area have tench but the fish are invariably small and often in lousy nick , perhaps out-competed by carp , which have less refined table manners ..
sam vimes
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One of the last reliable tench day ticket waters in North Yorkshire that I know of......
http://www.selleybridgelake.co.uk/
http://www.selleybridgelake.co.uk/