Another Attempt At Tench Fishing

When I arrived at the lake I was surprised to find only one other angler there, fishing the swim I'd fished previously. He was pole fishing and mainly taking small roach and perch. I set up a couple of pegs further down it a peg with a bit more room. My intention was to fish double maggot to one side and sweetcorn next to the lollies to the right. A bit of plumbing around showed the swim to be a couple of feet deeper than the corner one. The waggler floats were trapped between a couple of float stops with all the shot in a bulk a foot from the hook in order to bypass the tiny rudd up in water.  I did fond one of the largest water snails I've ever seen. I knew they grew to this size but most of them I see are only half the size.

Having chucked out a few balls of groundbait laced with sweet corn by the lilies and similar with maggots to the left I settled down to fish. While not much happened to the sweetcorn the maggots attracted a fair few perch and roach Before a pike grabbed one I was reeling in and wrecked the swim for quite some time. In the mean time the carp were crashing about in the lilies. The other gent suffered a similar fate. By tea time the perch and roach had turned up again and I was the only one on the lake. I spent a little time trying to take a picture of one of the grass hoppers, but they're reluctant to stay still. When I did get one in frame another jumped in as well so two for the price of one.

As a chomped on a sandwich the maggot float shot away out into the lake, the ratchet on the centrepin panicked the moorhens. . After a while had whatever it was under control and heading back to the swim. A double figure carp came wallowing up to the surface and was heading to the net when it went barbel on me and shot off again through the lilies to me let before coming the a halt in the next swim. I wandered down there to find it stuck in piles of Canadian pond weed and silk weed just beyond the reach of the net. I left it for five minutes to see it it would swim out before opting to just heave and see. This seemed to work as it was heading towards me but it then decided to set off the other way. The float jammed in the pile of weed and the hook length gave. Bugger.

As I tied on another hook-length the float above the sweet corn lifted and slid away. After charging around the swim like a lunatic a two and half pound tench made it's way into the net. I put the last few balls of sweetcorn laced groundbait in and recast. For the last hour before dark the swim was fizzing but nothing seemed interested in the sweetcorn on the hook. I tried replacing it with a bunch of maggots but that didn't make a difference. The final bite of the night was from a tiny perch that took four maggots.

 

I suspect the tench in this lake my be morning feeders in the main.