I recently received an invite to fish a prolific tench venue, which although involving a 400 mile round trip, it was certainly worth putting in a few extra miles. On arriving at the lake after dark I knew I wouldn’t be fishing properly until the morning as I needed to re-spool my reels and tie up a few rigs.

A couple of hours after arriving at the lake I started to have an allergic reaction to something and I drove myself to hospital to get checked and sorted. I arrived back at 2am and got the rods out as best as I could. I and knew it was the simple case of waiting until first light before I could start fishing effectively.

At first light I noticed a couple of fish rolling at around sixty yards range. After a couple of exploratory casts with a marker float, I soon pin-pointed a lovely clean area which the fish had obviously been showing over. I soon had a mixture of Hinders hemp, Little Gemz, dead and live maggots, CC Moore’s Belachan stick mix, Hemp Oil and Betalin and Black and CC Moore’s Feedstim deposited over the area.

After all the commotion I managed one fish weighing 8lb 5oz. I continued to work the swim during the day but sadly did not manage to pick up any other fish.

It wasn’t until 5am on my second morning that things kicked off properly. I went on to land six more tench. I kept topping the bait up and kept getting takes. The best bit was hooking a 6lb 6oz tench and then moving one of the other rods out of the way to stop the line getting in the way. Straight after doing this the other rod bent over and line began peeling off. I struck into what felt like a good fish and called for help from my mate Dan.

I handed him the tench which went 6lb 6oz and proceeded to play what felt like a very good tench. It eventually became apparent it was not a tench but a huge common carp, which set a new PB weighing 35lb 1oz.

All fish were taken on 12lb Gardner Pro Light Blend Line, Gardner Plummet Leadcore, large maggot feeders covered in camo tape to reduce the release of maggots and disguise them. I used a helicopter set up using various components from the Gardner Target range and a Gardner Target 8lb Fluorocarbon hook link.

Hook bait was either a dendrobaena worm or an Enterprise buoyant fake maggot on the hair dipped in either Betalin and Black or Feedstim.

Finally tally – Tench – 6.6, 6.10, 6.11, 6.13, 7.3, 7.8, 8.5.

Carp 35lb 1oz – New PB