This is not a tale of ten and twelve pounders! Tench of such weights simply did not exist in those days. A 4lber was a very good fish indeed and a 5lber considered the fish of a lifetime – strange as this may seem to today’s anglers. The odd capture we did make would always be just the one fish: never more.
Large catches of tench were taken elsewhere but by others: I am thinking here of the well publicized hauls made by Fred J Taylor and his joyous crew in the 50s and 60s from Wotton Underwood lakes. But waters of this ilk were not available to us so we soldiered on, always with an ear to the ground for a venue that could produce a bag of these venerable creatures.
Then during a family picnic in the summer of 1962 (in what was then the wilds of Essex) we stumbled upon a lake in the middle of a forest. It was only a few acres of shallow, clear, weedy water and a walk around its banks revealed no one to be fishing – but we did find a keep-net in the water.
With nobody in sight we took a quick look at its contents, gingerly raising the net to reveal four fat tench. Here then was a water that could produce a bag of these fish, and a friendly interrogation of the keeper revealed that the lake could be fished on day ticket. Apparently it was prolific tench water and it also held good roach and pike. He showed us the log book in which anglers recorded their catches over many years – we had, at long last, found our Eldorado!
The summer was now quite advanced and with autumn now on its way thoughts of the coming pike season occupied our thoughts. It was decided that fishing the new tench lake would be put on hold until the following season (this was back in the day when the world was civilized and a close season was strictly enforced) so plans were made to fish it for the first time on the 16th of June 1963.
Then disaster struck, or so it seemed. I refer to the bitterly cold, long winter of 62/63 when it was so cold for so long that even now, half a century on, the thought of it turns my ageing bones to water.
In those times few people had central heating and it was quite normal for thick, hard ice to form on the inside of bedroom windows. Getting up was a fearful task involving a dash downstairs to the inviting warmth of the coal fire in the living-room. Bugger those London smogs we got so often then! The smoke from all those coal fires killed-off large numbers of people but I think we all would have croaked but for the old Jeremia in the living room! I smile when we have the odd cold spell and the weathercasters on the tele (who are usually around 25 years old – what do they know?) announce, quite seriously, that it’s “…been the coldest spell since eighteen-before-the-old-king-died”.
Utter bull-shine! I often wonder what other crap is fed to us by the press and the tele! That winter the Thames and the sea off the east coast froze over and icebergs clogged the Thames estuary. The inshore population of conger eels was wiped out. I recall us hacking a hole through the ice with a pick-axe on one of our local gravel pits to find that it was over three feet thick; indeed the local hounds were taking old cars onto the ice-covered pits and thrashing them around for fun! This went on for months (and I often wonder how a single kingfisher survived) – how would the tench in our shallow, new-found lake have fared?
How did even one of these survive the 62-63 winter?
A trip to the lake was made in late spring when the Arctic onslaught was over, though blocks of ice could still be found in the middle of April. The keeper was grilled on the fish’s welfare and, to our great delight, we learned that very few fish had succumbed: the tench were fine! How they got through that lot unscathed I’ll never know but perhaps they buried themselves in the thick mud that carpeted the bottom. Anyhow, alive and well they were and the Glorious 16th was eagerly awaited.
1963. If ever a year defined the 60s this was it. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones had arrived and invigorated the country; John F Kennedy was assassinated (yes I do remember where I was – in a fishing club meeting) and the BBC’s ‘That Was The Week That Was’ challenged the Establishment. More importantly we had a new tench lake to try!
We arrived at the lake on the afternoon of the 15th and settled into our swim, fully expecting to have to wait for the midnight start. Soon after, several other anglers arrived and set up their tackle. Around six o’ clock the keeper came round and told us we could start. That was very decent of him! Our bread-flake was cast out and we settled down for the vigil.
Just before dark I had a bite and landed our first tench from the new water and at dawn the next morning I had another. Wow, two tench in one session! That was going some! Some of the other anglers had done well with a good number of fish falling to their rods.
Tony Corless didn’t always catch big ‘uns y’know….
The following weekend it was decided that a four-day midweek trip would be made and that we would camp in the forest. Camping was not allowed but a light greasing of the keeper’s palm soon put that problem to bed; he even agreed to cook breakfast for us each morning for a small consideration! I was well pleased: not only was I looking forward to the fishing but I would also be bunking off school for the week – brilliant! I was never a great lover of school. Now… how to really get to grips with these tench? The answer was BLOOD – and lashings of it. The great Fred J, master tench-angler, had voiced his opinion in the angling press that ox blood was a great attractor where tench were concerned. Luckily we had a slaughterhouse not far from home and a visit there on the morning of our departure secured two plastic bucketsful of the stuff. In those non-pc days it was no problem to just walk in and ask for a couple of buckets of blood; the slaughterman just said “No problem, you can have some from this one” then promptly fired a bolt into a cow’s skull, hung the beast on a hoist and cut its throat. Our buckets were filled in minutes and he even added some anticoagulant to stop it clotting. You wouldn’t get a service like that for a florin today, that’s for sure.
We then departed for the lake in my fathers car, a Wolseley 4/44, all walnut trim, two tone grey with white-wall tyres and smelling of leather It would do 100mph if asked – a proper car, that was.
Discussing the previous week’s fishing, we felt our baits had not been fished hard on the bottom due to the heavy weed; we had, then, made a serious weed rake. On arrival that afternoon, we set up the tent in the trees by the lake, assembled the tackle and proceeded to rake our chosen swims. This took a lot longer than anticipated, the luxuriant growth seemed never-ending and soon a great pile had been heaped on the bank. But still it kept coming! We persevered until we finally hit bed-rock or, rather, the evil-smelling black mud that lined the bottom. Perspiring heavily we took a breather and had a cup of tea and a fag while the muddied water settled and became clear once again. Then the ground-bait mixing started with a bucketful of blood being tipped into a plastic dustbin (I remember it was a yellow one – funny how some things stick in your mind) and bound-up with a load of stale bread and bran until balls could be formed. This was then lobbed into the swims to create a big red cloud in the water.
We then settled for a bit of a clean up and a bite to eat before retiring for the night but sleep was not to be had. It was no good. At 3am we were positioned in our swims waiting for the light to get strong enough to see our floats. Of course it had to be a float. Is there any other way to fish for tench? I don’t think so. To this day I think that tench caught on leger tackle don’t really count. The rods were 13 foot Spanish reed jobs with split cane top joints coupled with four pound lines, peacock quill floats and size eight spade end hooks whipped direct. By about 3.30am it was light enough to make a first cast. Nothing happened for half an hour or so, then the bubbles started to appear… little clusters of pin bubbles erupted all over the swims and soon the floats began to dip and sway as fish brushed the lines. Then without warning the float disappeared, a quick strike was made and the first fish of the morning was hooked. A spirited fight ensued and soon a plump three and a half-pounder was in the keep-net, followed at regular intervals by other beautiful, olive tincas. Being such a shallow, clear lake, sport died off with the rising of the sun, but we’d had enough by then. Shortly, the keeper shouted out from his house close by the lake that “Grub’s up fellers”. We left our tackle in situ and went to our repast. I think that was the most scrumptious fry up I have ever tasted, the fried bread being particularly good washed down with hot sweet tea, that and the netful of tench down at the lake. Could life get any better?
TO BE CONTINUED…don’t miss the second half of Tony’s tenching exploits.
