Estate lake tenching – The boys are back in town

Thursday the 31^st of May and Friday the 1^st of June

Well we've had a right old game with permits on my local tench water this year, traditionally it was run by a local tackle shop but at the end of April that changed and the owners took control via an estate agent. Initially all seemed to be fine and we were told to carry on fishing until things were sorted out but then a letter was received saying that no fishing was to be allowed until some decision were made. To cut a long story short we lost the best part of three weeks fishing, throughout much of that time many of us started to wonder if something was going on, if we would actually be allowed to fish at all, very frustrating but in hindsight I guess it should have been expected with estate agents involved! Anyway at long last my permit dropped through the door on the Thursday morning and I made a detour after work to pick up some maggots before heading over for a long awaited session.

For once this wonderful climate of ours actually did us a very big favour, in a more typical spring (if there is such a thing) warmer temperatures would have meant that the window of opportunity for a big tench before spawning was very limited and the ticket situation really would have been critical. Being shallow and stream fed the water had received the full force of the cold rain and it looked like it could be some time befoe ideal spawning temperatures were reached.

The first thing that I noticed was that the water was back to it's usual clear state, the rains had previously left it quite murky but I much prefer it clear especially for maggot fishing which is quite visual. Fellow Soar Valley renegade Leo was joining me for a few hours and arrived just after me, we both set up along the field side although we soon decided to change that idea after another angler reported a good hit from further along the bank as he passed us on the way to the car park. These fish can be quite localised at times and having lost a few weeks of valuable background information that was good enough for us so we moved quick time. Somehow Leo managed to find a coin deep in his usually sewn shut pocket, I think it was a farthing, and flipped it for swim choice, he won, did they ever make double headed farthings? He took the left hand swim and I ended up on the right which happened to be where Roger had caught from, and also happened to a nightmare to cast from due to over hanging trees, I had to kneel right down to save hitting the branches.

The wind soon dropped away and as I stood chatting to Leo I commented on a patch of bubbles not too far out in front of him, he spotted them too and recast a rod onto the spot which in no time at all produced a small fish for him. Things were looking a bit dire in my swim, I had seen one or two fish showing down to my right but a thick set of pads made them unreachable. I was starting to think my card was marked as time was getting on but finally I was away and the fish did just what I didn't want it to do and kited hard to the right. On a long line there wasn't a great deal I could do and I had to bite the bullet and pull it straight into the pads, keeping the pressure on and the rod high it slowly wound its way towards me whilst pinging off of lily stems until Iit reached the clear water and I was able to scoop it up. Not a huge fish at 6lb 12oz but in nice condition and a blank saver which I was most grateful for.

Friday saw me pulling a swift one from work not long after midday and heading back to the lake, there were quite a few anglers on but a swim that we had done quite well from last year was free so I dropped in there. Phil Smith was next door and had caught a couple or so which was promising but after three hours I was biteless, I kept working the feeders though and not long after Phil had returned at a fish at about 3pm I was into one of just shy of 6lb's and not long after took another of just over 6lb, that wasn't a bad return for a quick session and I was back home by 5pm.

It wasn't the rod wrenching start that we had expected when we finally got fishing again but it was a start, and it was great to be back, bring on the big girls.