Estate Lake tench

[Gary Bills]

I can see a lot of my holiday time next year going to group trips. :chuckle:

Pity there isn't a tour operator amongst us. :chuckle:

D'you know, Mark - that is an interesting thought---a package holiday, moving from water to water, spread out over a week or so... I travelled to Romania by coach in 1999 to see the full eclipse (24 hours non-stop to Vienna, 32 hours to the borders of the Ukraine...), so this would be a doddle by comparison. We could tent up/bivvy up lakeside, so accomodation wouldn't be a problem...

[Julian]

A 4lb 15oz tench I caught a few years ago:




from this spot on a very deep (60 feet) gin clear clay pit , fishing in the margins ( 12 feet deep) on lobworm with sliding float. All the fish in this pit were very deep/ brightly coloured , probably due to the water clarity:

[JerryC]

I fished a club estate lake for the first time in about three weeks yesterday for the resident tench. Like most ‘Capability’ lakes it is somewhat shallow and due to the last two years of little rain has been well down since late last spring. The levels are now returning gradually (an increase of about a foot since the end of last year) due to the recent addition of a bore pipe gradually pumping water in, and the rain over the last couple of weeks. It is expected that normal levels will be achieved in the next three weeks, or so.

The water now appears a bit colder than the last visit (unfortunately no thermometer with me) and, although the tench were feeding somewhat better than expected, there is one issue I did observe. The first tinca I caught was a female of around 6lb and appeared not to be carrying any spawn, even if spawning, unlike some previous years, is to be in the more usual late June early July time this year I would have thought there would be some visible development at this time. The other fish were all male so I had nothing to compare on the day and was wondering – was this fish an exception to the ‘norm’ or are tench around the country generally not carrying spawn yet. Possibly the water temperature, due to the above, is lower than some waters or maybe I’ve got used to tench spawning earlier than is normal in recent years (the tench started spawning in late April last year) I believe that there is no ovarian development below 10 degrees C. Therefore the date of first spawning may possibly be constant to the number of degree days higher than 10 degrees C.

It would be interesting to hear how the tench are progressing in other waters.
Jerry

[GloucesterOldSpot]

I caught a rather lean female on Sunday which showed no sign of developing spawn.

I took her fishing with me.