Last year I set my stall out to catch an eight pound tench. Nottoo difficult I hear our southern friends say (those who are blessedwith a much warmer climate) but this is a different tench altogether.This is a Cumbrian tench.
The plan duly evolved and the water was chosen. I was fortunateenough to land a high seven pounder from this water the previous yearso at the end of March 2000 I started my campaign to capture my prizewith high confidence.
On a winner then the bites stopped
By May I had had several decent fish to over six pounds. Then thebites stopped . The water I would have put my mortgage on me catchingtench from totally died. Really whipped I went to a nearby pond,which had a large head of smaller tench, to try and rebuildconfidence, and duly bagged up.
Not me at fault then, so what was the problem? The only differenceI could come up with between this year and last was the increasednumber of people fishing on the target water. Being principally a daywater I decided my best chance would be to fish overnighters to takein dusk and dawn and exploit any overcast mornings that might comealong.
Well this boy hadn’t night fished since giving up carp fishing andbeing seven years into recovery was well rusty, if not seized upaltogether! Every mistake known to man plus one or two I invented allby myself compounded the problem for the first few weeks. By Julythings were starting to improve and I really felt the job wasstarting to come together.
Closed the office and bought some corn
Come the day, come the man, and on this particular day I couldn’tsettle at all and at 1.30pm decided to close the office, switch theanswer machine on and go fishing. On the way to the ponds I called inat Morrisons and bought a bit of food and some backup corn, meat anda can or two of lager and safely navigated the M6, arriving at mydestination at about 2.30pm.
I had a brew with Chris the owner and found out who was where,what had been caught, and scrounged some hemp. Strangely reluctant tofish I made my way to the chosen peg at about four. I set the nighttench gear up and promptly placed it to one side as on a whim Idecided to have a play. Back to see Chris and a borrowed five metrewhip, half a pint of maggots and about ten worms were to provide theearly evening entertainment.
Personal best perchlets
By 5.30 I had set a new personal best. Fourteen perchlets betweenone and four ounces, all caught on the same worm. Life really doesn’tget much better but the time had come for the serious stuff -blanking for tench.
The evening session began, and by midnight I was evolving into aserious specimen angler, absolutely nothing, nil, zilch to eitherrod. By 1am I was the finished article. After a prolonged andvigorous battle a two pound bream was netted followed quickly by ascrappy four pound male tench that went absolutely crackers in thenet and on the mat resulting in one wet and slimy angler.
Well folks that was the action for the night and by seven thatmorning I was red eyed through lack of sleep and extremely short inthe temper stakes. This wasn’t helped when a lad arrived intent onfishing the connecting pond, set up and duly landed a good sixpounder and requested my assistance in photographing same.
A cup of tea and a bacon roll later and I managed to talk myselfinto giving the fishing another hour or two. I duly re-baited andcast one rod to the edge of the lilies on my left and to the channelwhich connected the two ponds with the right.
Wild thing!
At precisely eight thirty, Radio 4’s sports update had justfinished, and the right hand bobbin hit the rod and the buzzersquealed in protest. Battle commenced with something both heavy andpowerful and more than once as it tried to return to the other pondvia the channel I was glad I had beefed my line up from five to eightpound Maxima. Eventually I started to gain line and was beginning tocongratulate myself on attaining my target after so many setbacks anddisappointments.
Then somehow, and I have no idea how it managed it, but that longawaited and so hard worked for personal best tench changed into oneof the small head of wildies that are sometimes hooked but rarelylanded due to the abundance of snags. Well what could I say? I lookeddown on the beautiful bronze, almost black (in places) scales, theorange tail, its little piggy eyes and the length of its leanmuscular body. I wet the weigh sling and placed my prize in andwatched the scales pass eight pounds and settle between eight poundsand a quarter and eight and a half pounds.
Cursed again
Looking at her on the mat a kaleidoscope of thoughts went throughwhat was left of my mind. What weight if she’d been a mirror with agut, why hadn’t she been a tench, how the hell had I kept her out ofthe snags that were everywhere. Then strange stirrings began and anaffliction that I thought had been cured resurfaced. I was changingback into a carp angler. This time however the curse has changed forthe worse. No longer will porky mirrors or commons do. Nope, I’vedone as much as I can or want to do with them in the past. I’m nowdoomed to try and search out other waters holding wildies, the rarestof the carps but by god the most beautiful.
Since that auspicious day when I set my modest personal bestwildie at an agreed weight of eight pounds four I have caught perhapsanother twenty or so from that water and another tiny pond I havefound. I have also upped my personal best twice with fish of justover nine pounds and another of between thirteen and fourteen pounds.Alas I have no useable pictures of the latter as to get a trophy shotwould have meant sacking her for more hours than I was preparedto.
It is now mid June and I guess that the remainder of the summerwill be spent on trying for that damned eight pound tench with theodd fun day elsewhere thrown in for the sake of sanity. But whoknows, another nuisance wildie might just appear… ….
