The Pikers Pit

been on a 2 day tench fishing session , not night fishing by the way
fished over a bed of red maggots and ground bait with heli maggot rigs without as much as a bite in 2 days ,not even a roach put an appearance in ....
this venue does hold some huge tench to doubles but is a hard one to crack ....sun was shining and warm and no rain so cant grumble really

steve

No issues with eels/silvers? I've always struggled to fish casters/maggots for tench without one or the other rendering it a waste of time.

I’m yet to catch a tench. Hopefully that will change this spring/summer. A couple of club lakes hold then, but I just end up getting pestered by carp.

Jack

stubbojo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12 2024 20:48 -

been on a 2 day tench fishing session , not night fishing by the way
fished over a bed of red maggots and ground bait with heli maggot rigs without as much as a bite in 2 days ,not even a roach put an appearance in ....
this venue does hold some huge tench to doubles but is a hard one to crack ....sun was shining and warm and no rain so cant grumble really

steve

I wonder if the water gets loads of carp anglers bait, Steve? the reason I ask is that I fished an old gravel pit where the tench were so switched on to bolies that you couldn't buy a bite on more traditional tench baits.

Cheers, Alan

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13 2024 06:57 -

stubbojo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12 2024 20:48 -

been on a 2 day tench fishing session , not night fishing by the way
fished over a bed of red maggots and ground bait with heli maggot rigs without as much as a bite in 2 days ,not even a roach put an appearance in ....
this venue does hold some huge tench to doubles but is a hard one to crack ....sun was shining and warm and no rain so cant grumble really

steve

I wonder if the water gets loads of carp anglers bait, Steve? the reason I ask is that I fished an old gravel pit where the tench were so switched on to bolies that you couldn't buy a bite on more traditional tench baits.

Cheers, Alan

you could be right on that one alan as the carp lads on there catch tench fishing for carp ......and for what i have seen over the 2 days ,far to much carp food going in
just played the waterwolf back , not a fish in sight , no small roach or perch and not a single bit of weed growth yet on the bottom .

steve

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13 2024 06:57 -

stubbojo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12 2024 20:48 -

been on a 2 day tench fishing session , not night fishing by the way
fished over a bed of red maggots and ground bait with heli maggot rigs without as much as a bite in 2 days ,not even a roach put an appearance in ....
this venue does hold some huge tench to doubles but is a hard one to crack ....sun was shining and warm and no rain so cant grumble really

steve

I wonder if the water gets loads of carp anglers bait, Steve? the reason I ask is that I fished an old gravel pit where the tench were so switched on to bolies that you couldn't buy a bite on more traditional tench baits.

Cheers, Alan

I had exactly the same on a venue i fished a few seasons ago. They simply wouldnt touch any natural baits at all which was very odd as the place is not heavily fished for carp. After speaking to one of the carp boys who could see i had no interest in carp at all, he told me to try krill boilies as the tench were, in his worde "p*****g them off" because they kept taking them. The result was plenty of tench. But even so i couldnt get my head round why they were so completely occupied on boilies on a large water that wasnt heavily fished for carp. Strange!

I fished a couple of carp waters for tench. On one I caught tench on boilies, but also on plastic corn. On the other boilies did nothing for me and it was maggot feeder/plastic casters or maggots all the way, but carpers were catching tench on boilies. Sywell, not carp fished, in the '90s was Tuttis or bust! Tench are a law unto themselves.

stubbojo wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13 2024 08:07 -

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13 2024 06:57 -

stubbojo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12 2024 20:48 -

been on a 2 day tench fishing session , not night fishing by the way
fished over a bed of red maggots and ground bait with heli maggot rigs without as much as a bite in 2 days ,not even a roach put an appearance in ....
this venue does hold some huge tench to doubles but is a hard one to crack ....sun was shining and warm and no rain so cant grumble really

steve

I wonder if the water gets loads of carp anglers bait, Steve? the reason I ask is that I fished an old gravel pit where the tench were so switched on to bolies that you couldn't buy a bite on more traditional tench baits.

Cheers, Alan

you could be right on that one alan as the carp lads on there catch tench fishing for carp ......and for what i have seen over the 2 days ,far to much carp food going in
just played the waterwolf back , not a fish in sight , no small roach or perch and not a single bit of weed growth yet on the bottom .

steve

One water I carp fish, if I switch to using smaller hook baits, say boilies of 12mm, I will literally catch tench all day. They are a bloody nuisance if you're not fishing for them. A little red or pink pop-up, sweet/cream flavour, is a tench magnet. Yet I see guys float fishing for tench on the same water and struggling to catch anything but silvers. You need to pay close attention to what they like to feed on. If a lot of bait is going in, just fish high attract hook baits. I fished an Essex carp water a few years ago where most of the guys were heavily baiting spots and not getting much, I just fished hook baits and cleaned up. I literally caught all the known bigger carp within my first year on there. Never put out a single freebie.

Mike F wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14 2024 11:32 -

cookiesdaughtersdad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13 2024 06:57 -

stubbojo wrote: ↑Fri Apr 12 2024 20:48 -

been on a 2 day tench fishing session , not night fishing by the way
fished over a bed of red maggots and ground bait with heli maggot rigs without as much as a bite in 2 days ,not even a roach put an appearance in ....
this venue does hold some huge tench to doubles but is a hard one to crack ....sun was shining and warm and no rain so cant grumble really

steve

I wonder if the water gets loads of carp anglers bait, Steve? the reason I ask is that I fished an old gravel pit where the tench were so switched on to bolies that you couldn't buy a bite on more traditional tench baits.

Cheers, Alan

I had exactly the same on a venue i fished a few seasons ago. They simply wouldnt touch any natural baits at all which was very odd as the place is not heavily fished for carp. After speaking to one of the carp boys who could see i had no interest in carp at all, he told me to try krill boilies as the tench were, in his worde "p*****g them off" because they kept taking them. The result was plenty of tench. But even so i couldnt get my head round why they were so completely occupied on boilies on a large water that wasnt heavily fished for carp. Strange!

I tried baiting heavily with hemp in an attempt to switch them over but ended up using boilies, I remember packing up as I was playing my 1st tench and didnt go back, I wanted to catch them how I wanted to catch them!

Cheers, Alan

davelumb wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14 2024 13:39 -

I fished a couple of carp waters for tench. On one I caught tench on boilies, but also on plastic corn. On the other boilies did nothing for me and it was maggot feeder/plastic casters or maggots all the way, but carpers were catching tench on boilies. Sywell, not carp fished, in the '90s was Tuttis or bust! Tench are a law unto themselves.

"Tench are a law unto themselves."

I agree and possibly because they can truly become highly preoccupied on a certain food source which if you get right.........

Cheers, Alan

One water I fish for them is hemp and caster, nothing else will draw a bite from them????

I fish a water that I target mostly for carp but do get the odd tench' mostly 1-2 season. This year I.ve done 5 day sessions and had 2-3 a day +carp - seems they are really turned on by a washed out pink fruity pellet wafter over a mix of pellets and crushed boilie - all are good fish 6-7.5lbs. Never seen the like and fished thr place for nearly 10yrs and tried everything before

Oldskoolfool wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16 2024 07:42 -

I fish a water that I target mostly for carp but do get the odd tench' mostly 1-2 season. This year I.ve done 5 day sessions and had 2-3 a day +carp - seems they are really turned on by a washed out pink fruity pellet wafter over a mix of pellets and crushed boilie - all are good fish 6-7.5lbs. Never seen the like and fished thr place for nearly 10yrs and tried everything before

I fish a water for tench where the only thing worth fishing is a large flatbed method feeder covered in 2mm pellets with a 6" hook length and a pink wafter on a hair.
The flavour of the wafter seems to make little difference, but pink gets picked up far more often than any other colour.

A Heli rig with chopped worms rarely gets touched, nor does red maggot, but a method feeder is deadly.

fished a water the other day were the tench are rare indeed according to the carp boys ......i caught 3 tench to about 4 pounds and a good bag of roach and a pike .....

the tench came to the heli rig .....with 6 maggots on a 12 hook trying to put off the roach...... but it didnt really they still took the maggots ....

normally the carp turn up too on red maggots

had to catch the pike as it was attacking the roach , it sat in the margins after for about an hour so quietened it down for a while .


steve

Tench also like squid and sections of mackeral oh and bread.

i have been fishing for tench for a few years now never had much luck with natural baits mabey 4 fish in a session then i switched to pop ups had 15 fish in 1 session and this was on a lake with no carp in it.

Worms always been great for me, my best haul of 30 fish was taken in worm, think it’s quite water dependent though imo. My pb came on boilie though