Worming one out.....

A couple of sessions on the tench lake again this week, the first on Sunday morning last from 6:00am. With not alot to report from that one except for the fact that despite it being mid May I was dressed in my full winter garb and felt colder than I did on days in January. With the north easterly wind cutting through and chilling my bones all morning keeping the temperature no greater than 8 deg C, by 11:30am I'd had enough.  With only one  liner to show for five and a half hours fishing I headed home feeling a little defeated. This water can be cruel sometimes the prevailing conditions seem to really effect it more than other waters at times.  The day before when it was slightly warmer the fish had seemingly been queueing up to be caught, one lad landing 12 fish plus a decent bream into double figures. Now the other two anglers and me on the lake, we could bearly raise a bite between us.

Wed however was completely the opposite with the temperature soaring up the scale to 23 deg C in the space of three days. Unfortunately this didn't seem to encourage the fish much and I struggled to get any interest. James was down again (same as Sunday) fishing the float in the next peg along but he struggled for bites too. I heard that some of the other anglers had found the going tough over the last few days also, dramatic temperature change is never a good thing I feel, it takes a few days of consistent weather the keep the fish on the feed, especially here. 

Earlier in the day while on my lunch break from work I popped into a tackle shop to get some fresh reds and decided to splash out on a shiny white smomb to see what all the fuss was about. I've gotta say within two casts of it I was converted. It flies well, feels lighter than a spod and with no spills is perfect for any bait, except for a real stodgy mix I suppose, but that won't affect me anyway.

Full darkness had descended at about 10:00pm and despite a couple of liners I'd not had a proper run yet. I saw a fish roll just further out from the baited area and wondered if they were on the mooch in my swim now?  James came round on his was back to the carpark, we chatted about tench and the usual stuff as you do, when the left hand rod suddenly screamed off on a 'proper un' I lifted into that familiar solid curve and pumped what felt like a nice fish in towards me. The fish took a bit of line so I hoped it would be decent. Then it suddenly seemed to give up in a very bream'esk fashion I hoped I might be into one of the binlids until a reasonable tench slid over the rim of the net. We both guessed a mid six based on its size but it only went 5lb10oz which goes to show how inaccurate we all are at guessing weights.

Dodgy phone cameras -better than nothing I suppose!

That was it I gave it another half hour and had one more dropped take on the worm, but no more fish were banked. The worm rig taking the only customer all evening which was interesting, I expect the fish were not around my swim in any numbers and I only managed to entice the odd passing fish to show any interest as they were moving through rather than get a decent shoal to stop around and feed.  I have struggled to get into the bigger fish so far this tench season but hopefully I can turn that around in the next few sessions.