Tench off the bottom

This forum is for discussing tench.
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Stathamender
Tench
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Tench off the bottom

Post by Stathamender »

The conventional wisdom is that tench are bottom feeders (it's them stirring up the mud that causes the bubbles) and bait needs to be nailed down. But I've caught them fishing baits either off the bottom (float) or buoyant (e.g. dog biscuit) from a leger rig. Others' experience?
Iain

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Luga00
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Re: Tench off the bottom

Post by Luga00 »

I have caught a lot of tench by fishing a bait suspended a couple of inches above bottom.

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Shed_Monkey
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Re: Tench off the bottom

Post by Shed_Monkey »

A friend and I used to take tench off the top from a lake with a good head of wildies - maybe they learned from them, but it was regular enough to be worth trying on certain swims.

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Dave Burr
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Re: Tench off the bottom

Post by Dave Burr »

I've had them hard on the bottom, just off the bottom and even on floating crust but I did mention on another post that in the Korda dvd's they seemed reluctant to take pop-ups.

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Phil Arnott
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Re: Tench off the bottom

Post by Phil Arnott »

I've caught an odd tench on-the-drop. I once fished for some fish which were chasing each other around in groups of 5 to 8 fish in what appeared to be a prelude to spawning. They were in 4ft to 5ft of water and I caught them in mid-water with lobworm by casting over them and slowly reeling the bait in among them. I've seen them take a surface bait but never caught one on the surface.

Tench are a species that can be very cute at times.

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Nigel Rainton
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Re: Tench off the bottom

Post by Nigel Rainton »

My biggest haul of tench were mainly caught on slow sinking bread or luncheon meat hanging just under lily pads. That reminds me, I haven't been tench fishing for quite a while :-)

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NorfolkTinca
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Re: Tench off the bottom

Post by NorfolkTinca »

That's very interesting. I am inclined to believe that tench use the mid and upper layers a lot more than we might think, especially in very weedy waters where a large part of their diet is to be found on the plants, rather than in the mud. There's one water I know where I suspect a lot of the "fizzing" is actually tench aggressively stripping snails from the weed, nowhere near the bottom. This water seldom produces anything to legering, but float fishing is far more productive, and I suspect that the float-fished bait is not always quite as firmly on the lake bed as the theory might suggest. On an easier water, I'd experiment with mid-water baits, but this is a place where you get one fish a day if you're lucky; not a place where it's easy to learn.
My biggest fish is not necessarily my best

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Stathamender
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Re: Tench off the bottom

Post by Stathamender »

I've never caught tench with hemp (the attraction of which is often supposed to be its resemblance to water snails) as a hook bait but after clearing out a load of snails from the wife's pansies I'm considering using these larger specimens as bait next time I'm on a tench water.
Iain

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I suspect it could be “love”, despite its drawbacks in the rhyming department.
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Silfield
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Re: Tench off the bottom

Post by Silfield »

One of the fly-only trout waters I used to fish had a good head of Tench with the smaller ones quite often caught on a grhe or a buzzer/ptn sub surface.
I am not aware of any of the larger fish taking a fly though.
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Kev D
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Re: Tench off the bottom

Post by Kev D »

On a couple of farm ponds that l used to fish as a youngster the tench would drift out of the weedbeds and snap up pills of bread on size 16 hooks meant for dwarfish rudd. At times like this they ignored other baits and the bait had to be falling through the water. Once it dropped below mid water it was spurned.
Both ponds were quite clear and the fish were easily spotted ghosting from the weed towards the bait. But you had to be quick to hook one and then ready to stop their dive back into the weeds if you did. Not many were landed on our rudd gear.
Deliberately turning up on the bank and trying to catch them on this method didn't work but once in while something would trigger this feeding behaviour.
Apart from that, l once caught a tench on a big worm that l had lowered onto a lily pad in front of what l assumed was a carp humping through the lily bed.
And at the same pond in one memorabe evening l caught a carp on a freelined worm intended for tench and a tench on a floating dog biscuit in about six feet of water.
In order to shoot some close-ups, wildlife photographer ,the late Len Scapstillon, lured the orca to him by dressing as a seal.......

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