Catch up part 2 - Tench curse over.

I don't know what it is about me but I always push my luck with the timing when going after some species throughout the year and end up having some kind of mare. You see I had been gagging to catch me some tench but in truth I have wanted to catch them on the float rather than sitting behind rods and buzzers, for which I don't have too much love right now. Three sessions attempting to catch a tench in the margins at Napton on float and caster and the highlight of catching a few hundred average perch was the one male fish who seemed to think his capture was the crescendo of some kind of mating ritual and proceeded to ejaculate all over my right leg, the dirty bugger. Anyway, back on the subject of tench; after watching them rolling at forty yards as the milt dried into my trouser leg I concluded that to break my tench curse before I had to make a libation I would have to give in a pull out the bite alarms, dust off the Avon rods and fling a few feeders to put this tench mare to bed for the year. 

Instead of Napton however I opted to head back to Ryton for a short session, as this water-filled sand pit is always the first venue where the tench get going round these parts. It's been almost a year since I had been back to Ryton and in that time the payment system for the car park had changed, as had the charge making this an expensive club water when combined with the annoying stocking fee charged by the club. Money aside, this is a reliable water for tench and that's what I needed: a session of confidence boosting captures.

Catch fish I did... catch tench I did not! Somewhere in the three hundred and sixty five odd days since I had last fished Ryton my mind had seemingly blanked the fact that this once tench heaven had been ruined by the appearance of generation of bream, so greedy and annoying that even the dedicated carp anglers who seemed to frequent this water have abandoned it to mother nature. Literally those bream might soon be behind the ruin of one of Warwickshire's great tench waters. The dam b$*#%£s eat anything you cast in, and worst of all there is obviously tench still around but the bream just get to your baits first.

After four hours of three pound bream shitting up my gear and scoffing down just about every morsel of bait, I finally got a blinding run which resulted in me being connected to a fish that did not fight like a Tesco bag full of silt. Thank god it turned out to be a lovely beautiful green tench.

Quite literally after I watched that fish swim I reeled in my second rod, packed away my gear and went home to mow the lawn. Yes, I actually voluntarily stopped fishing whilst I still had time to fish and went home to do the garden, and honestly I can't see me going back to Ryton for any serious fishing in the future. 

Little did I know that my next outing after tench would end on a much higher note than my last. This time and with my duck broken I headed back to Napton to try and get back in tune with the tench fish there. On arriving I was met with a joyful sight: British waterways, the CRT or whatever people control the canals, had been pumping dirty muddy water into the clear waters of Napton for a couple of days it would seem and seeing the happy little fishes topping all over the dirty water I thought a good day could be on the cards.

After a quick subtle racking of the swim using my mini stealth rake, which makes little more disturbance than a spod, I was happy that the swim I was about to start fishing was clear of weed and debris. With the water now even cloudier than before I deposited a few loose balls of ground bait laced with casters and corn onto the spot. 

One and a half hours later I was convinced that I had in some way ruined the swim. Maybe the rake, stealthy as it is, was too much or simply the fish weren't comfortable in the new dirty water. Whatever it was they weren't biting. A quick reccy down the bank revealed nobody was fairing any better and rather than make a rash move to another area I opted to sit it out and play out my gamble on raking the swim. My patience paid off when a small patch of bubbles emanated at the back of the raked area. The tench were here and on course for my bait. A few knocks and nudges later and the float rose from the water slowly in a very deliberate manner and a tench was on. In a hectic spell I landed five pristine tench, both males and female between two and five pounds all only two rod lengths out.

Little did I know there was still better to come. I have often said that although outwardly I may essentially look like I am tench fishing at Napton, the fact remains that I always fish here with crucians in mind. By that I mean I fish very sensitive rigs strong enough to stop tench and refined enough to trip up shy and very rare ancient crucians that ghost around this venue driving us a bit mad. Thank god I do always fish this way as not long after watching another tench swim off and recasting my rig I spotted a suspicious flip of fish a bit further out than my float. The last time I saw this sort of thing here I had an absolute red letter day.

The next bite was nothing to shout home about. A small rise in the float preceded a slow slide away and I fully expected to be playing a tench. The fight was different though and I soon suspected a big rudd was the culprit. When I saw a huge dinner plate size golden side roll under the rod tip I in no uncertain terms pooped myself. It was a huge crucian! Luckily there was no fuss and it went into my net quickly before I realised it was hooked by the smallest possible amount of flesh and could have easily come off. But it didn't and as I folded back the net my eyes lit up at the sight that lay before me. The size of these old fish is shocking when you see them out of the water and if it weren't for them being so thin in the back these fish would easily be contenders for the UK record.

The weight though doesn't matter to me, all I cared about is that fact that after all my efforts over the last few years chasing after these wonderfully rare little group of highly prized fish, I am lucky enough to have captured another one and I think my face says it all...

You'd think that having put number five on the bank might have satiated my urges to catch these wondrous fish. Well it hasn't! And in fact the sight of that fabulous fish just serves as fuel to the fires of my desire to catch more. Hence I will be resident for most of the summer at Napton I should think now.

Ryton's on the change.

I read somewhere once that lakes go through cycles in relation to the dominant species within. It said that lakes are either dominated by bream or tench and that even if both are present it is normally a case that there will be one species that is dominant with the other only present in small numbers. At the time of reading this I never thought that much about it, but now thinking back and applying this theory to some of the lakes I fish, it makes sense. My old adversary Coombe pool was in the past renowned for being a bream Mecca, and although there is still a giant shoal of bream swimming round in it, there is no doubt that the bream numbers are dropping and more tench seem to be showing up. Napton reservoir in all its bleak resplendence is predominantly a tench water with apparently a handful of big bream. Personally I think the dominance of a species in an environment is simply down to environmental factors and who they benefit, and my belief was further reinforced when the other week I returned to a favourite lake of mine, Ryton pool. Ryton has changed a lot since I began fishing years ago. I remember the first year I fished it when the water was gin clear and the weed grew so much that by midsummer I reckon with a spot of luck and light feet you could have run across the top of it. Others years after that there was differing amounts of weeds and clarity but one thing remained the same; tench were what you caught and bream were just rumors. Fast forward ten or so years and I once again stared into the water exactly where I did when I first came to this lake and one difference was that I quite simply could not see the bottom as I could on that first visit. Over the years this sandpit lake has become more and more coloured during the warmer months and possibly as a result things might be changing.

When I arrived on my first session a while ago the water was coloured but the lake looked pretty much as it had when I last walked away four years ago. The few stages still dotted the woodland bank, people were still feeding the water fowl copious amounts of food from the duck feeding station and the long concrete road bank was still infested with rats all the way down to the very last swim on the side of the road point where I decided to fish.

Much to my amusement I was lectured quite arrogantly by a pair of young carp anglers after I asked how it was fishing. The pair of Noddys must have thought they were auditioning for a role on Thinking Tackle the way they were talking. Everything was casting out tight to this or using that and honestly, they sounded a proper pair of idiots. Worst of all was that I reckon when I first started fishing Ryton one of them might not have been that long out of nappies.

The faces sitting around the pool may have changed since back in the day, but the fishing it seemed hadn't. After pitching up on the end of the concrete I began fishing exactly as I used to, by casting method feeders at range. This tactic always worked well here as the disturbance caused by putting down a bed of bait seemed to put the fish off too long to be of benefit. By roaming the feeders round I always seemed to pick up a fair few fish, then once an area came to life repeated casting usually found more fish.

It didn't take much more than fifteen minutes for the line I had cast onto the plateau in front of the island to scream off. Much to my annoyance this fish snapped the five pound hook link I was using and straight away two new heavier links were tied and cast out baited with 10mm boilies, which proved to be the down fall of a slew of nice tench.

The best of the session was not much over four pounds but still I was very happy to see that the tench were still about in Ryton. Much to my amusement the arrogant young carpers down the bank were being driven crazy by my buzzers going off all afternoon and I wasn't helping the situation by increasing the volume with every fish to make sure they heard the shrill tones. They might not have been carp I was catching, but every time a buzzer sounded I could see their little faces looking over to see what I was reeling in.

What came along next though would herald a change which I think could well be the end of the tenchs domination of Ryton pool. After a single bleep the bobbin dropped back and for Ryton that's unusual. Every tench you catch generally pulls the bobbin up be it gently or violently and when I lifted into the fish I was met with a dead weight. In all the years previously fished on this pool I have caught two bream. The first was a random four pound silver thing and the other was an old bugger that was knobbly, black and blind in both eyes. What rolled into my net was young, a few pounds and just turning from skimmer too bream.

The tench were gone after this fish and no matter where I moved my feeders they seemed to be found by another little bream. Four more homed in on my ground bait topped method feeders and sent my bobbins back as they moved off with the baits.

Where these young bream had come from was a mystery, everyone who fished this pool knows of the shoal of big old bream which rarely got caught and everyone was of the opinion that they were well past breeding age. Turns out that might not be the case and that possibly some bream Viagra might have found its way into Ryton about three years ago from the look of these healthy young buggers.

A few days later I went back to have a second crack at Ryton under the belief that these bream might have just been a freak occurrence, but exactly the same thing happened. Two tench were landed not long after arriving...

Then the rest of the session was dominated by the veracious horde of young bream which quite literally followed my feeders back to my own bank after I began fishing at range and ultimately ended up margin fishing in an attempt to avoid them. 

It is with disappointment in my heart that I say I reckon Ryton is on the change. Yes the tench are still present, but undoubtedly after a couple of sessions it is obvious that there is a hell of a lot of these 2-4lb bream present at this time. Looking at them they look really young and strong, they almost seem pre programmed to eat boilies, which is no suprise as loads get fed into this water. It's a sad time for the tench fishing at Ryton which I used to love so much, as these bream will ultimately have a huge effect on the water and probably push the tench out over time. Although there could be a silver lining to this change! If they can avoid the predators and keep growing as they seem to have, maybe in a few years Ryton might be filled with really big bream which could make for some interesting fishing in the future.