Broken sunshine and a cooling breeze are, for me, ideal fishing conditions, therefore when Thursdays heavy shower subsided and dad and I rolled up at Napton at about 3pm things looked promising, few other anglers were present so this time we were able to fish from the causeway into the big resevoir.
To save some time we opted not to visit the tackle shop and to rely purely on sweetcorn as hookbait with a few slices of bread as a change bait, tackle was straightforward enough too, floatfishing with 4lb mainline, 3lb bottom and a size 16 barbless hook.
Fishing about two rodlengths out we both had indications from the off in the form of fast sailaway bites which left us striking at thin air, continuous tackle refinements were required throughout the session in order to contact the fish, changing depth, moving the tell-tale shot, switching between double and single corn. Everytime I felt I had cracked it I was soon back to missing the unmissable bites, however I was catching, albeit spasmodically, and I was catching some big and hard fighting tench mostly of three pounds and above (not the 2lb stamp which seem to be the norm at Napton nowadays).
Dad fished only about twenty feet away along the stones but his swim was markedly less active, although he'd caught one tench of about two pounds it seemed his hard to hit bites were courtesy of roach and he proceeded to catch a couple which were both around the pound mark, he also had a six ounce perch, going to prove that Napton isn't just about the tench (An angler who packed up shortly after we arrived had a couple of the magnificent Napton reservoir crucians amongst a nice bag of tench).
The highlight of my day came when after a dour struggle I landed a six pounder, only the second tench I have ever caught of this size, still a big, big fish in my book and very satisfying to catch, who knows how old she would be to have attained this size, twenty years ? Tench certainly aren't a fast growing species like carp ( and I should know, I've been involved in farming both species in my time ) in the wild it usually takes three years to attain a weight of about six to eight ounces. Maybe our paths crossed when she was a young fish ?
I ended up with thirteen tench, a couple were about two pounds and all others were over three pounds with some around the five pound mark, a nice bag from a relatively short session, I was still catching when we packed up and headed home at 7pm.
To save some time we opted not to visit the tackle shop and to rely purely on sweetcorn as hookbait with a few slices of bread as a change bait, tackle was straightforward enough too, floatfishing with 4lb mainline, 3lb bottom and a size 16 barbless hook.
Fishing about two rodlengths out we both had indications from the off in the form of fast sailaway bites which left us striking at thin air, continuous tackle refinements were required throughout the session in order to contact the fish, changing depth, moving the tell-tale shot, switching between double and single corn. Everytime I felt I had cracked it I was soon back to missing the unmissable bites, however I was catching, albeit spasmodically, and I was catching some big and hard fighting tench mostly of three pounds and above (not the 2lb stamp which seem to be the norm at Napton nowadays).
Dad fished only about twenty feet away along the stones but his swim was markedly less active, although he'd caught one tench of about two pounds it seemed his hard to hit bites were courtesy of roach and he proceeded to catch a couple which were both around the pound mark, he also had a six ounce perch, going to prove that Napton isn't just about the tench (An angler who packed up shortly after we arrived had a couple of the magnificent Napton reservoir crucians amongst a nice bag of tench).
The highlight of my day came when after a dour struggle I landed a six pounder, only the second tench I have ever caught of this size, still a big, big fish in my book and very satisfying to catch, who knows how old she would be to have attained this size, twenty years ? Tench certainly aren't a fast growing species like carp ( and I should know, I've been involved in farming both species in my time ) in the wild it usually takes three years to attain a weight of about six to eight ounces. Maybe our paths crossed when she was a young fish ?
I ended up with thirteen tench, a couple were about two pounds and all others were over three pounds with some around the five pound mark, a nice bag from a relatively short session, I was still catching when we packed up and headed home at 7pm.
The only downside on the day was the badly damaged mouths of some of the bigger, older fish, caused presumably by repeat capture over the years or possibly the unpleasant results of our bolt rig culture.
0 comments:
Post a Comment