Winter Tench....Hmmmm!

Contrary to the writings of Walton, Walker, Venables, et al, on the twenty first of February Phil and I went Tench fishing! Not strictly true of course but given the recent cold conditions and diabolical current state of the rivers we found ourselves at Napton Reservoir.

It is a peculiarity of science that in deep bodies of stillwater the water at the lake bed will maintain a temperature of four degrees Celsius even in the coldest conditions due to the maximum density of water occuring at that temperature, therefore in theory at least the depths of Napton provided us with a fish catching opportunity.

Big roach are present in fair numbers in this water and would be our primary target but we also believed that tench were no forlorn hope having both caught Winter fish at the venue some years ago.

The reservoirs looked overly full, cold, bare and windswept in stark contrast to Mr Crabtree's perfect June morning on the perfect tench lake where pin prick bubbles betrayed the presence of tench and the float would dither before sliding away and where, I seem to remember, poor old Peter got a b*llocking for shuffling his feet (a bit harsh Crabtree, give the boy a break!).

Phil settled in a peg close to the car park to fish his usual two tip rods with feeders and maggot, I was a few yards away and choosing to float fish maggot. Before long it became apparent that I needed to move, fishing a float in twenty feet of water with a thirteen foot rod (I don't own any sliders anymore) and coping with a considerable undertow isn't my idea of a fun day out!

As Phil continued biteless in the big res I had now found a comfortable position half way down the nearside bank of the small res where the depth was more like ten feet and the lake surface was flat calm.

The sun came out and made for a very pleasant afternoon but despite my very restrained (for me) feeding, no bubbles appeared and my float refused to dither even in the slightest and to be honest for all I know it could have been twenty Celsius at the lake bed with the tench doing the lambada around my bait and playing castanets.

My tally for 2010 still stands at an astounding one fish, hurry up Spring!

From Floods to Frosts

Crossing the, now passable, field leading to the river with Phil and his mate Denny I was in determined mood, determined, that is, to catch my first fish of 2010 which had eluded me to date. While the others had intentions to target the barbel with meat and boilies and to both fish with two rods each it was my preference to fish for bites with a single rod, small feeder and maggots.

As Phil and Denny made their way to the weir at the upstream limit of the stretch I settled into a peg on a large bend where I knew there would be some deep, slack water on the inside. In the Summer months this area is alive with small fish and although fishing would be far from easy given that the previous couple of nights hard frosts it was clear to me that this spot represented my best chance of some sport.

Although very cold the river's level and colour looked to be spot on and I was soon comfortable behind a feeder rod fishing a small drennan feeder with a size 18 hook and double maggot. My line of attack was to fish the slack water on the edge of the crease adjoining the main flow where I imagined the fish to be, due to conditions I was sparing with my feeding.

On my third cast I missed a bite and next cast caught a dace of about three ounces or so, after this bites became few and far between and only resulted in one more hooked fish which shed the hook after a few seconds, hopefully a smallish chub and not a big roach!

By 4pm I couldn't get a bite at all and it had already become very cold, Phil and Denny were biteless having persevered with big baits and we were all feeling quite defeated and ready for home.

It's proving to be a difficult Winter but at least I've finally caught one!