Bubbling tench

[keora]

I've beentench fishing today, and spent an interesting morning trying to catch fish which were bubbling copiously over the loose feed (corn and halibut pellets) I'd thrown in. Despite the obvious presence of tench- bubbles every few minutes, a couple of tench mooching about in the margins, two others rolling further out, I only had one bite which I missed.

I was float fishing6yds out in 8ft of water. Thewater was fairly warm at 16 C, although there was abright sun and no cloud cover. Baits were corn/bread/pellets alternated on a 12 hook on 5lb line.

Towards the end I felt the fish weren't actually feeding on the loose feed, as there was quite a bit of fishactivityjust outside the area I was feeding.

Has anyone got anyideas on how to get those bubblers to bite?

 

[Fred Bonney]

I usea small red worm or dendrabena and caster or sweetcorn cocktail.

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA)]

Or use a single maggot on a strong 16 hook to 4lb flurocarbon hooklength.

Try the lift method using 8 inches of peacock quill. Feed with loose maggots.

 

[Bob "chubber"Lancaster (ACA)]

prob your bait is on top of silt and the tench are down in it. Two things to do in my mind are to rake the swim before you start so your bait is down with your feed. Or as i do and did the other day just use a quill loaded like a waggler but with no shot down the line at all just a free lined sweetcorn about a foot over depth and let it just float down in the silt. They'll find it.

 

[slime monster]

i have experienced this on occasions it is frustrating and baffling micro pellets can sometimes lead to preoccupation ,it is even more annoying when pole fishing when a bait can be lowered on there noses. i can not offer any solid explanation,it would be logical to assume it was natural food causing this but when the only activity is in your baited area ??

 

[njb51]

Fish a bait up in the water....

 

[Mike Humphries]

I had exactly the same thing a couple of weeks ago - Tench bubbling all round the swim but only the occasional tiny lift or dip on the float.

Spent 5 hours with no fish, thenchanged to a lighter hook length and smaller hook and wham - hooked 4 fish in the last hour (although 2 pulled out).

I get the impression they are still feeding quite cautiously on my water and small baits / light tackle is the way to go.

 

[Specihunter]

don't put too much loose feed in as the tench will happily feed on it and ignore the hook bait.

 

[john charlton 2]

i fished a lake this evening and the same happened to me tench are feeding but only on naturals!

i fished a gravel pit a few year back and i kept getting the most delicate of twitches on the quiver tip but no bites in the end i started striking resulting in catching one and losing another tench!the 1 i caught was hooked in the edge of the mouth and the inside of the mouth was a load of bloodworm,i think they were picking my corn up and spitting it out while sifting for naturals.if i'd of had maggot i think i'd have done better.

 

[keora]

Thanks for the advice.

I actually did drag the swim with a rake before starting fishing, and I changed to the lift method about half way through the session. As for using maggot or worm, these attract many of the small perch in the water, so it's better not using them if you want to catch tench.

If I used a lighter line, the tench tend to swim into the marginal weeds and neatly transfer the hook to them.

I wondered about using a hair rig, althoughI'm not convinced if it would have made much difference, as the 5lb hook length I was using was fairly thin (0.18mm).

It still intrigues me - were they eating the bait or were they nibbling at the natural food in the silt ?

 

[Nigel Connor(ACA ,SAA)]

I'm no tench angler but a lot of tenchers swear by the artificial floating casters and maggots which they use to balance the weight of the hook to get a neutrally balanced hookbait which the tench suck up along with the loose offerings. If the tench are feeding by simply sucking in particles then the additional weight of the hook may mean the hookbait simply does not get sucked up.

I have read that you can confuse the fish by having a variety of particles of diiferent weight as loosefeed so they have to differenbt amonuts of suck to get the bait in their mouth.

I have also seen recommended using a much larger bait such a lobworm.

I used to have in my possesion a letter from **** Walker to a friend's late dad which recommended the little red worm technique suggested by Fred B.

 

[Mike Humphries]

I have the same problem with Perch. I only feed maggotts now if I'm in a "non-Perchy" area, but continue to use maggotts and worms on the hook. Can't avoid the Perchaltogether but maggotts and worms are such good baits for Tench that I reckon you should still use them and accept that you will pick up somePerch as well. As long as you don't feed maggotts (particularly red ones) then at least you should not attract vast shoals of Perch.

 

[Ray Daywalker Clarke]

Try a big peace of Bread flake, or a lob worm.

I have had this happen before and found that bigger baits do the trick more often than not. You could try a boilie, many tench anglers do nowdays, ,

Bread and lob worm would be my choice, bread flake will lay on the silt, lob worm will work its way into the silt where the Tench are.