Back on the tinca trail ...

After a few weeks without much fishing time, I managed to get back out on the bank this morning.
So back to the tench lake it was to try and net my first of the year.

I arrived at about 6:30am with the weather sunny but cool in the strong easterly wind, making it a bit uncomfortable in my position tucked in the shade.

Bites were hard to come by, but I managed to induce a take late on in the morning resulting in this very welcome 5lber.  The fish was pretty flat spawn wise, but I would expect they will be mooching around looking for suitable protein rich food to fuel their egg production by now.  So they should pack on more weight in the coming weeks.

5lb 4oz - not much spawn yet.

I packed up around lunch time after one more dropped take, both that and the landed fish coming on lob tails. The maggot and particle rod didn't produce, except for a few bleeps that I put down to wind action or maybe even undertow on the first few feet of line off the rod tip.   I always try to make sure my lines are pinned down as much as possible to avoid annoying liners. That way the alarm only bleeps to a taking fish (well sometimes).

I'm not sure the lakes fully awake yet and I suspect there's been a bit of a false dawn with the high pressure and warm temperatures so far this spring. The night time temperatures are still down to low singles so it might be a week or two before good multiple catches are likely. The tench in this lake are always late in emerging from their winter hibernation, so there's plenty of time yet, in fact this is the earliest in the year I've ever caught a tench from it so far, although I know others have had fish here and there during April.  I think it'll switch on pretty soon though, and then it's a race to fill your boots and beat the weed growth before the best swims become a pain to fish.