Boilies for Tench

Anyone got an suggestions on introducing boilies to Tench, (the water in question does not contain any carp.) I've had tench in this particular water up to 7?lb on corn and pellets but as more and more people are banging method feeders about with these baits, I am thinking of trying some small 10mm boilies.

Firstly, am I wasting my time, if not how should I go about it??

Secondly, the bottom is quite weedy, therefore are there any rigs that will sit on the weed or am I going to have to rake a swim??

Cheers

Danny - I would be tempted to stick to what you are doing, unless you feel your fishing is being impacted. I do a lot of tench fishing but rarely use boilies, even on the heavily fished carp waters. But that is just personal preference.

Have you thought of flavours? Personal favourite of mine is maple flavoured chick peas (or maize).

As for rigs, check the rigs page on this site, I am sure someone has put one in for weedy conditions. I just slip on some disolving foam onto the hook and use a longer hook link so the bait doesn't bury. It seems to work, but there again I feel quite confident if baits do bury, especially into silt.

However, when I can I will always rake the swim and then fish immediately. Its the best attractor I know for tench!!

you are not wasting your time with boilies,it's just confusing which ones to pick. so many now even at 10 mm. richworth do a good selection of 10 mm, i have done o.k. on ones called worm extract not sure if they still make them . suppose you could roll yer own!
using a rake is a good idea whatever, try breaking the boilies in two, smell leaks out faster and don't sink into weed as easy. also if fishing the ledge your loose feed won't roll down it. as to rigs with weed you could fill a book! try the float.

Definitley worth a go, try tutti-frutti or esterberry boilies

Thanks for your comments gents, much appreciated.

Stu Bullard, like the idea of the foam, this place is full of silkweed (i think thats what its called??) I feed tiny pellets (2mm - ish!) when float fishing, these actually sit on top of the weed and the fish can be seen cruising the top of the weedbeds picking them off sometimes, so the foam could be a great help! Thanks.

Had a fair few (but not as many as my mate, GRrrrrrrr!!) on EA Strawberry and Bergamot 10mm shelf-lifers this year Danny. Interestingly, the water in question has never really been fished on boilies and the tench took to them fairly quickly. But we've had just as many on corn, maggot, lobs and meat so I'd try and present your bait better rather than change baits.

Try a long feeder link (to weed depth) with a short hooklink with a couple of pop-up maggots on a hair and a bit of corn on the hook itself to slowly sink the bait onto the top of the weed. Test the balance in the margins first though so that the maggot/corn balance is just right. The feeder groundbait hidden in the weed will draw the tench in and start them searching for goodies when hopefully they'll spy your hookbait first.I've usually used this as a fixed paternoster rig, but tend to sit on the rods and hit bites quickly anyway, before the full weight of the feeder is felt. Useing a hair with the knotless knot (+ line aligner if not a downturned eye model hook)should improve hooking as will the buoyant maggots on the hair.

As for raking, if the swims are close enough then do it! I always start my season (June 16th!!) by raking and baiting a local drain and have had some cracking catches of tench (16/17 fish) on a water where 3 or 4 in a day is usually very good. I prefer a particle and corn approach personally but make sure no-one sees you raking and nicks your swim as has happened to me before!

I have done very well on Richworth boilees for tench. I have always used the frozen ones. As Stuart Harvey suggests tutti-frutti and esterberry are both very good. The two flavours I used to do best with in the frozen range were fruit cocktail and tropicana. These were both excellent but, unfortunately, have been discontinued for a while. I hope Richworth reintroduce them at some time. The salmon supreme ones are very good. I am not sure if they still do these. It may not be necessary to go down to the 10mm size. I generally use the 14mm ones. I find it hard to fault these boilees. I have also caught'nuisance' carp to over 32lb on them.

No I don't think you are wasting you time, However. Be carfull If the tench in your lake are not used to seeing Bollies you could spook them if you over feed. If you are catching on corn I would tend to stick with it. Altering it's colour & flavour could be more productive then changing to Bollies.

As for a weedy bottom it is always a good tactic to rack the bottom when Tench fishing but if this is not possible use a pop up bait. Even corn can be poped up if you add a bit of foam or even use artificial bait designed for this perpose.

think tropicana are back now...

If tropicana are back this is great news. If I do any stillwater fishing this summer I will get some as my past results give me a lot of confidence in them.

honey yucatan are available as freezer baits tooooo...yummy!

funny how the old favourite "crap" baits arte making a reappearance....if only pukka salmon and boiled ham............

Rake the swim by all means but think on this, GM and I fished a water where we use to do this by making tracks in the weed using a boat and very large rakes, as did all the other members. What we found was the tench soon got wise to this and started to avoid the area. I and another member actually saw the tench on several occasions take flight when they came to an open patch where it had been raked.

I subsequently stopped raking one of the swims I fished and used the weed to my advantage. There were several types of weed that grew in this water, a blanket weed that grew up to a foot off the bottom, and two species (water milfoil & curly pondweed) that at times reached the surface. The latter two not being too dense until July, after which time the swim did get very thick with them. But that didn’t matter as I moved off to another water breaming instead of tenching.

As we had the use of boats on this water, I would bait direct over the swim with corn and maggots by hand, liberally sprinkling the whole area. The corn settled nicely on top of the blanket weed some would disappear through it but that wasn’t a problem, because tench root, and root hard through the weed and into the bottom sediment for bloodworm, other surface and subsurface invertebrates.
Some of the maggots would settle on the milfoil and pondweed 2-3 foot off the bottom. Again this wasn’t a problem it was an advantage, as the maggots would wriggle and fall down the plant stems until they eventually settled out on the blanket weed. In effect, what was happening was, the swim was being drip feed for several hours with maggots after baiting.
If you can’t use a boat on your water, search the achieves for an article of mine called Gadgets from the House of Gadget. The mega feeder will do the same job as you can do with a boat it just takes a lot longer.

I caught fish from this swim pretty consistently which was considered by other members to be a nursery swim with smaller fish present than could be caught elsewhere on the water
My best catch weight wise from this “nursery swim,” was three fish 8.7, 9.3 and a very small baby of 5.2. Never did get into the parents of the two former nursery fish though! That really would have been a story and a half!!!!

Dave, these 'crap' baits are ideal for those of us who do not specialise in stillwater fishing. The results are usually pretty instant. After a change we can then go back to the river. I suspect this is the same for people who do not do much fishing. I think they serve a very useful purpose. Of course serious carp anglers, which I assume you are one of, need a higher quality bait for longer term campaigns. Strangely enough I have not had very good results with the honey yucatan baits you mention, despite tench having a liking for sweet flavours. Maggots are probably my favourite tench bait but on some waters boilees are better. For tench by far the best results I have had with boilees have been with frozen Richworth baits. If I do any carp fishing I generally use a higher quality bait. On some waters, Sywell being a prime example, I have found it necessary to take two or three different types of boilee with me. The tench often switch preference from one to the other during the course of a day. Now that tropicana are available again I would recommend tropicana, tutti frutti and salmon supreme as a good selection for tench. If ever fruit cocktail become available again I would use these as I have had some of my best results on them. I have caught tench on good quality baits, both pre-made and self-made, and, although I have caught tench on them, the results have never been quite as good as on frozen Richworths.

dave, the "crap" was because i find it funny that baits that bait buffs call crap are still catching fish 20 years down the line......
"need a long term bait".....how long have tutti's been going?
typical....getting stereotyped by a bloody pleasure angler again! my best tench (11lb7oz) was taken on sweetcorn on float gear (it was a fish of the week or whatever in the anglers mail - my 5 minutes of fame!)

One method I find works well if things dry up, is to get a very fine sewing needle, pass a very fine, light line through and feed the needle through the end of a caster.

I normaly thread on about 8 casters.
When you have them strung up, remove the needle, bring the ends of line together and tie 2 nots.

Tie onto the Hair loop with several strong nots and trim off the ends.
I also do the same with maggots.
Its very similar to the Madussa rig, but without the poly ball and glue.

Tried it out a few years ago whilst the Bream bites died off.
Within seconds my Tipp was wrapped round. The same response for about 6 more fish.

Tried it with Tench, whilst laying on with a quill in the margins and Carp on the float and feeder.

But then there has been the odd session where nothing worked. LOL.

How do you spell Madussa???

Done very well with dead "gassed" maggots on a similar set up Ashe (see Archie Braddocks website or Feeder Fishing book for loads more info on dead maggots). Usually maple flavoured with a sliver of foam to pop the 8/10 maggots up just enough to let them sit gently on the bottom weed, a sort of neutral buoyancy bait.

I still find that for catching the bigger tench, bread takes some beating.
As Ashe said above, laying on in the margins with a quill is the best idea as bread flake doesn't last too long.
Put a smear of honey on the bread and loose feed with some bread pellets smeared in honey aswell. Dead messy but it works well.

Well, I've been down to the tackle shop this week and armed myself with some frozen Richworth boilies, pellets of various sizes, hempseed, red corn and Im also trying some immitation corn and also some immitation bread.

As well as this I will be taking down a nice fresh loaf and a pot of maple syrup.

Fingers crossed, my next post on this thread will be hopefully reporting a bumper sized tench and a lot of thanks for all your advice.

Cheers Lads.