Early Morning Tenching, Me And My Lad

[NEWKID 26,192]

A bleary eyed and very tired 7 year old was dragged out of his bed at 4.00 yesterday morning, after tales of bubbling tench and bream on the canal to get him exited I'm not sure if he slept at all.... I had hardly slept myself, with the full contents of my box and bag strewn accross the kitchen whilst I made rigs and generally prepared it was nearly 1.00 in the morning before I finally gave in and grabbed a couple of hours..

I'd made a couple of enquiries as to where was fishing on the canal ( the recent topics have had me thinking ), this is a bloody long deep canal so a bit of inside knowledge is useful... a mate had been having a fair bit of success on a nice stretch, not far from where the canal starts at the estuary.... a bonus being he had raked 9 swims over the last few weeks and siad "jump in one of them".. bonus thought I

The canal is a lovely place before first light, mist lfiting off the water, and enough fish bubblig and rolling to get me feeling like a kid again, we settled in a nice swim which was wide enough for us both to fish ( the weed in the hedge a give away to a newly raked swim). This is a stretch I've spent alot of time on as a kid/young man and it was nice to be back with my new little fishing buddy.

 

The morning on the canal

 

 

 

This was always a feeder place, but I'd been told they were coming out at 11m on the pole, keeping the baiting tight ( nothing extravgent, caster, hemp and a bit of ground bait with maggot or corn on the hook). So in went a few pot fulls of caster and hemp, and 4 balls with the same inside. My lad fished a whip on the inside for the rudd and roach. The swim was bubbling nicely and after 30 mins or so the first tench was safely in the net, this wasn't fast and furious fishing but nice steady tench fishing. There was a lot of toll on the canal and it was down in level around 1m ( it always has fished well when low), the toll was making it awkward and it took a couple of laced balls of groundbait every 30 mins or so to keep the fish coming styeadily, all falling to double or treble maggot on the hook. My lad had a nice few roach and rudd plus a little eel ( which he was delighted with lol).. we finished the morning with 7 tench the biggest around 6lb, it was really enjoyable to be back on the old canal.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh and my mate who gave me the tiip off, and raked the swims.... he turned up about 5.30 to fish with 2 other lads, he had raked another couple of swims a couple of hundred yard from where we were..... he walked up just as I netted my 6th tench and watched me catch number 7 the next put in.... he had had 3 rudd ... I was fishing the swim he'd fished the week before and had a few out of, he was always going to fish the 3 newly prepared swims...... but he was a bit gutted

Edited May 27, 2013 by NEWKID

[WILF 44,315]

Top class mate and one happy looking lad, well done the pair of you

[esoxluscious 44]

great write up

[johnny boy68 11,725]

Great write up Kev, the lad looks chuffed too.

[walshie 2,804]

Brilliant. Got me itching to get my fishing stuff out.

[steve66 3,086]

Nice post

[chrismdd 787]

Great going, looks like a great day had by both of you, well done.

 

Chris

[torchey 1,202]

Nice write up and photo,s mate ,fishing for tench has always been my favourite since a kid...

[NEWKID 26,192]

Cheers lads,

 

It was a really enjoyable morning, the canals really changed now though, most of our catch 20 or so years ago was skimmers and bream, plus loads of perch.. The most tench I've caught in one sitting before on this canal is 2, you just never fished for them as they weren't prolific enough.. We never caught 1, skimmer or perch yesterday.. I'm sure the cormorants decimated the skimmer stocks over the years, and who knows on the perch.. I learnt how to fish on those perch..

The rivers open in a few weeks and then Finley will learn the art of the stick float lol...

[northern lad 2,292]

Great pics/write up Newkid,enjoyed that,your lad looks like he enjoyed himself,well done fellas

[R.A.W 1,987]

great write up . thanks mate.

[the_stig 6,614]

you cant beat being up and about at that time of day its a different world

[NEWKID 26,192]

Cheers lads,

Your not wrong there stig, I love early mornings, the dawn chorus when everything starts waking up..

I got home to a nice roast and had a quick hours snooze in The garden in the sun happy days lol

[Nik_B 3,790]

cracking write up and some lovely looking fish

 

Taking my little girl trout fishing soon, were going to do an hour or two fly fishing and if we don't catch anything there's a pool where there kids can fish with a little pole and a 99% chance of catching

[twobob 1,458]

welldone to both of you