Tench fishing - getting warmer

Thursday the 10^th of May

Once again all reports from the lake were less than inspiring, many anglers were suffering blanks and the best catches were only of two or three fish when really we should be knocking them out left right and centre. But you can't catch them at home and with the forecast saying temperatures into the upper teens along with a strong wind from the south rather than the recent northerleys I planned a session after work, which with a bit of fiddling here and there turned into a 2pm start. My mate Steve, another Soar Valley Group member, had been down from early on and had only had one bite which fell off which wasn't encouraging, the only other angler on hadn't so much of a sniff. 

I had just caught the postman as I left the house and he passed me a letter marked with the estate frank, my new ticket as expected I thought, only on opening it quite the opposite was found. The lake was to be closed for fishing with immediate effect and the reading seemed to suggest that all of the appliees might not be lucky with their applications, just what I didn't need. But I was loaded and on my way and I wasn't going to stop now, after all two minutes and I wouldn't have seen the letter.

I went back into the last swim that I fished on Saturday on the field bank and this time fished one rod on the maggot and the other on the method feeder, both initially baited with the trusty fake maggot. By 6pm nothing had occured and I switched the method rod over to a small boilie hookbait which produced a bite quite quickly and a male tench of 5 1/2lb was landed after a pretty pathetic fight, unusual for a male that.

 
I changed the other rod over to the method too thinking that it might be the answer in the quite coloured water that we are now experiencing. Another bite at 8pm produced another slightly smaller male which at least made more of an effort to give me a bit of sport and that was the last action of the day.

Some kind of relief did come after a discussion with the bailiff as he assured me that the lake would only be closed for a week or so and that we would all be allowed to join, n reflection with the fishing being so slow that wasn't the end of the world, if the same had happened last year we would have been missing out on some cracking sport. So after weeks of hoping for warm weather I now find myself hoping it stays cold!