Canal Zander - The Hallowed II Chronicles Pt.10 (Tench hopefully)

The red-eyed Doctor Fish! This is the tench. And he's worth angling for. He is as tricky as the carp, and when you have hooked a good one you will know all about it. I've not come close to a Tench down here yet but others have managed them but they show often when you least expect it and often well in to dark for those that enjoy that sort of thing. 

Why are they called the Doctor Fish? It was supposed that sick or wounded fish rubbed themselves against the tench's slimy flanks and were promptly made well. There seems to be some truth in this claim. Many year ago apparently an angler living in Monmouthshire suffered from a skin disease caused by his work he was is a steel-worker. The doctor's treatment didn't work. All the ointments and lotions weren't a bit of good. 

Now this man caught a tench. In returning it to the water, some of the tench's slime stuck to his hands. When he went home he suddenly realized that his hands were more comfortable. He'd heard the story of the Doctor Fish so he began to wonder. 

He caught two or three more tench, took them home and kept them in a pond in his garden. Daily he took one out with a net, wiped his hands on the fish's flanks, put it back... and now his hands are as free from disease as mine are.

What does the tench look like? He is bronze-green in colour and has enormous fins and red eyes. 

He has two small barbs, one each side of his mouth, and he is extraordinarily smooth to the touch. How big? I have read that the record tench weighed 15lb and 3 ounces, but a fish of 6 lb was rare in the 70's when I was born. 

However, the tench is a strong fish his build tells you that and a two or three pounder's strength is quite surprising. 

With modern high protein baits from the boilie brigade over the years the tench year on year have been getting bigger and bigger much like the population. 

Now it has been recorded that tench bury themselves in the mud of ponds dried up in a drought; then they go to sleep and wait for the rain to fill the pond up again. 

Tench can hang on to life with precious little air to keep them alive. You can catch one, put it in wet moss, weeds or whatever is handy and suitable, and you can cart him miles to new water and he won't be a scrap the worse for the journey. The tench, of course, is a summer fish. In the winter don't waste any time trying to catch him. 

He is down in the mud and weeds at the bottom of the pond having a winter sleep. Sometimes on a warm winter day a tench might take an interest in an offered bait, but it is so rare that it is not worth wasting time in trying for one. You will find a few tench in the rivers, as you will bream, but still water is the home of the tench and in that still water there must be weeds plenty of them.

There is a belief that tench are, in a way, governed by the breathing of the plants. You know, of course, that in the day time plants breathe in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. When the sun has set the same plants take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. 

The tench need oxygen all the time so they hang around the water weeds while they are giving off oxygen and get away from them while they are giving off carbon dioxide. And I'm sure that this is correct. So when fishing for tench in daylight keep near the weeds, but very early morning or evening fish away from the weeds. Don't forget this, will you?

Anyway this is the 'Hallowed' after all so the problem is working out how to fish it as there is so much to go at. I was fishing as accurate as Jon Arthur after a massive bender last time I was here, so this time I'd try a helicopter feeder approach out where clipping up and a far bank maker would hopefully concentrate the bait in a smaller area. 

A feeder stuffed with groundbait and chopped worm and a worm and maggot cocktail on the hook. I'd also have some sweetcorn for the hook to mix it up a bit. Oh and being the hallowed, a deadbait out on a running rig and bobbin that I could leave do it's own thing rather than try and watch a tip AND a float which to be honest would have been a pain in the proverbials !!

Anyway better get fishing hasn't I !!!

What I didn't expect was right from the off was just how many fish were straight out in front of me. The rudd and perch were queuing up to get the bait. The maggots and worms were getting up even when the feeder was on the drop.

I retained a few in the landing net to show the stamp of the fish. The bigger ones were over a pound I[m sure. Now I'm using crude tackle for the Tench, so a size 10 hook and 5lb fluro carbon hook-link and they didn't seem to have a care in the world !!!

After a boat went through around 8.00pm I thought that was that, but no within 15 minutes the perch started biting again and then the rudd followed soon after.

So for the last part of the session I decided to switch to sweetcorn on the hook. I'd run out of groundbait by this point because, well I didn't think I'd be on the fish to quick and how many bites I was getting.

I missed loads as well, I'm sure it was because often the helicopter hook-link stops were not as grippy on the line as I'd like. So that bolt-rig effect wasn't as effective in nailing the fish. A change that I need to do next time. I bet fishing a float with the maggots falling slowly through the water column would have been the best way to fish the swim. The air temperature had dropped dramatically by this point and it started to feel nippy. Out of the blue a proper unmissable bite and something decent was pulling back. 

Not a tench sadly but a hard fighting hybrid maybe a couple of pound. As dusk came and went it was fingers and toes crossed for a tinca, but oddly the bites were hard to come by. Eventually a drop back bite a fish was hugging bottom and bouncing around. 

A bootlace eel had picked up the bait and decided to make a complete mess of the rig in the process. So that called the end to my session. I couldn't be bothered to set-up again and with the deadbait rod biteless in over 4 hours I headed back home. An enjoyable frantic session, you can see why the predators get big here, there are plenty of fish to feed on.