The weather had been bitter. Each day of my short stay in the Cambridgeshire fens seemed to have become colder. Each morning I poked my head out of the house only for the chill breeze to freeze me to the bone.
Then on Monday, it did seem a bit milder. I decided to brave it, so with a couple of pints of maggots and my newly acquired pole, I set off up the street for the village stretch of the Old Course of the Nene.
“Maybe I could catch a roach or two,” I thought as I placed my box into a nice flat swim and rigged my pole with a made up Drennan rig with a 20 hook, and no.4 elastic. I shipped out my pole to 11 metres and being a bit lazy, sat on it.
A nice catch of winter tench for Ron (click for bigger picture)
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I must have waited an hour for the first bite, a small roach. Then came a succession of ½ lb perch.
Then I hooked what felt like another roach. However all went solid and it felt like a pike had picked up my roach; then all went slack.
Out again and this time the float half sank. I lifted and found myself attached to a good fish. Ten minutes later I netted a foul hooked tench of about 4 lbs. “That's a fluke,” I though. I sprayed more maggots and shipped out again.
During the next 2 hours I netted six more tench. All of them took several minutes to land on the light tackle. However none of them fought like summer tench. Taking my time and allowing the elastic to do the job I landed the fish quite easily.
But what a catch! I have never had such a winter session in my life before.
After the seventh tench, I trashed my rig by missing a bite and my hands were perished.
I packed, John and Christine helped me take photos and then John and myself went to the pub.
I'll never forget this day as long as I live.
David Marrs
