Weeds

My first tench trip of the year had ended in disaster with the loss of one very large fish. After much licking of wounds it was time for me to get out there and try for a tench or two again. To give myself a fighting chance I drove down to the royal canal and a spot which has given me a few tench over the years. Would today bring success?

I had been ghillieing on lough Conn the previous day, so all that gear had to come out of the car and then replaced with my coarse tackle. That done, the early morning chores were all completed and I set off in good time for what would be a long day. We all associate tench fishing with balmy summers days, but strong, gusting winds and a sky full of rain were my lot on this (allegedly) summers morning. The rain eased the further east I travelled and by the time I had reached my destination there was little more than a heavy mist in the wind. Parking up on the towpath, I ventured out to survey the water. What I saw was not what I was hoping for.

The Royal is always weedy, it is part of the reason it fishes so well, so I generally don’t complain about the weed growth. This year though it seems to be much more dense than other years, to the point where vast stretches are unfishable even this early in the year. My first choice of venue was far too thickly weeded to consider fishing, so I got back in the car and drove another ten miles down the road to another spot where I have caught fish before. This second place is very popular and I found a swim which had obviously been raked out recently. Weeds were encroaching again but it looked like I could fish here with a bit of effort. Out of the boot came my trusty (and rusty) weed rake and I got to work lobbing it in and dragging it out to clear more of the green stuff. Once I was satisfied I had created a fishing space I mixed and fed balls of ground bait and catapulted some maggots in for good measure.

Taking my time to assemble the float rod, set up my chair and tie up a waggler, I let the swim settle a bit before commencing to fish. My expectations were limited and sure enough, it took a good 20 minutes before I had my first bite. I missed couple before hooking a small rudd, then another, then a perch. OK so far, but where were the tench? A quiet spell ended when some more rudd and rudd/roach hybrids showed up. Still I was missing an awful lot of bites so I dropped the hook size from a 14 to a 16. To be honest, this seemed to have very little effect and still missed bites, even what appeared to be good, strong ones. I was still catching fish though and the day was flying past.

While intently watching my float a male Chaffinch landed on the butt of my rod. The little fella seemed unconcerned about me and the reason soon became obvious, he was after my maggots. A few which I had spilled on the ground caught his eye and he was soon pecking at them and filling his beak. Off across the canal he flew, presumably to feed hungry mouths back at the nest. Minutes later and he was back, repeating the gathering of stray grubs. For the rest of the session that lad kept it up, never bothering with me even as I was casting or dealing with a fish. It was plain he had done this before and recognised an angler as an easy source of food. When I packed up I left a wee pile of maggots for him so at least the babies didn’t go hungry today.

It turned out my raking was not as complete as it could have been and over the course of the session I lost three hooks in weeds. Not the end of the world I’ll grant you, but it was more time lost re-tying hook lengths. Still no signs of the tench and by the time I was ready to go the Tincas had failed to show up at all. This part of the canal, while never hugely productive for tench, does hold a few of them but today I could not tempt even one to bite. I did manage 19 rudd, 7 roach and 4 small perch, none of which required the use a net. On one level I had a nice day out but I’m getting frustrated at the lack of tench.

I mulled my lack of success as I drove home, and decided to try more locally for a tench over the coming days. I have a few maggots left over from today’s session, enough for a couple of short trips. Ah well, it could be worse, I could have blanked completely.