Sunday 20 June 2010

Slimed at last !

After returning from my holiday last week, I was itching to be back on the bank but I had to wait until today to finally get an opportunity.    I was undecided on either the tench lake again or to start my river campaign for the new season. 



After speaking to a mate, who was updating me on the news from the Tench lake, I decided to have another go there myself.    I arrived at about 7:00am and set up the swim and rods, then sat back to sip a well earned coffee.   The lake was gin clear but there was a nice ripple on the water, and I was pleased to see a bit of cloud gather to shade out the intensity of the sun. 



I sat back to contemplate my chances and had a strange feeling that I might blank once again but this didn't seem to bother me.  I decided to tie rigs and tidy the swivels, beads and loose shot in my tackle box. Whilst keeping busy my mind was relaxed and not fretting about bait position or weed on the hook etc.  Not long after the alarm on the right hand rod gave a short burst that didn't develop (must have been a line bite ?).

Later in the morning and I had been continually casting each rod at half  hourly intervals to build up the swim and hopefully get some fish searching for more maggots, none had shown an interest so far.   I was just packing away the non essential items, such as marker rod etc, when the left hand rod ripped off at speed the alarm singing pretty much a one toner.  I bent into the fish steadily and felt a pleasingly smooth and solid force coursing through the water in front of me.  The fish came in quite quickly but stayed deep to my right at about 4 ft - 5ft.    I readied the net but on the first attempt the fish turned and shot back down at incredible speed.  Luckily my clutch setting was good and the reel gave line perfectly.   I coaxed the fish carefully back to a netting position and guided her over the cord.   She was just a smidge under 6 lb and after several attempts on this lake since May, this is my first Tench of the year, which  made the catch even more memorable.




It's off to the rivers for me now, however I may just have to try for another of these golden green beauties before the end of summer.

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