Matthew Fernandez couldn’t have asked for a better welcome back to his tench water after the lockdown period
Matt told us “I’d booked onto my chosen venue and couldn’t wait to get back out. Since April I’ve been dreaming of catching tench! I returned to the venue and straight away got a rather large bucket of bait spombed out on my chosen spot, my mix consisted of two jars of chilli hemp, two bags of 6mm and 8mm halibut pellet, a kilo of 14mm source dumbells and a serious helping of liquid worm extract and a serving of halibut ground bait to bind the mix-up. Once the bait was out there I went about getting my rods on the spot. I fished with my trusty Drennan MK1 2lb tench and bream rods coupled with my 5010 bait runner reels. These were loaded with 10lb ESP synchro mono. Down at the business end I went with a couple of Drennan 60g open end feeders which were fished helicopter style on a leadcore leader. My rigs were short 3” hooklinks made up with some Semi-Stiff Tungsten Loaded hooklength and a size 10 Cryogen Curve Shanx with a 14mm source dumbell as hookbait.
Within half an hour I landed my first small male tench but the rest of the day went by without a bite. At dusk, the liners started and the tench began to show. I landed four tench to 9.4lb which I was over the moon with! Around 1 am I lost a large carp and that proved to be the last of the action ntil first light. From first light the action was steady and the tench fed confidently. I landed nine more between the 4 and 6lb mark before one of my rods churned off which I thought it was a carp! I was dead certain it was a carp as the fight was insane! That was until the fish got snagged close in some marginal pads and I managed to catch a glimpse of the tail. It could see it was a monster tench and instantly my legs went to jelly! I considered jumping in but thankfully the tench broke free and made a mad run for the open water again! Eventually, luck was on my side and I landed the magnificent species! It went 11.4lb! What a way to crack open this springs tench fishing.”