April so far...



Due to one thing or another (new job & family holiday) I've only managed to get out a couple of times since my last post.  I float fished caster and corn on a small pool one Sunday morning to see if the numerous tench in there were active yet, but only caught roach.

Then last night I rushed from work to get to the Tench lake I usually fish to have my first session of the spring on there. By the time I got back home to collect my tackle, changed and headed down to the lake it was already 6:45pm. Some of the lads that fished last year were there too, so after a bit of a social chat I finally got to my swim just after 7pm. This didn't give me much time, still I was there now and as the fish do tend to come on the feed in the last hour of light on this lake, I hastily got the rods out into the water.  There was not much action in my swim and apart from two line bites on one rod there were no takers.  I stayed on till about 9:30pm as it was a cloudy mild evening and I was hoping one of the big slabs might put in an appearance after dark.

It was one of those sessions where your not really feeling into it, probably because I was in too much of a rush.  I couldn't take my time to search the swim with the marker rod and build it up with careful baiting, so it was chuck it and chance it affair really.  As it turned out the session was more useful to me in blowing the cobwebs off.  I just needed to re-accustom myself of all the small intricacies that are involved in this style of fishing. What with using critically balanced baits, marker floats, clipping up the line etc etc..  Now that my mind has had a chance to re connect myself with the lake and how I want to fish it this year, I can get better prepared for my next session.  I think it's a little too early for the full on - fill it in particle bait & spod approach yet, so I might experiment with pva sticks and with my usual maggot feeder over the next few sessions, and see how they compare against each other.

Being only mid April it's still pretty early for the Tench on this lake, in fact I don't think I've yet caught one this early in the year from here. So it was encouraging to hear that there have been a handful of reasonable fish out already this month to some of the other lads, and a few nice bream too.

I can't wait to get the chance for a proper session on there now.