Dr Paul Garner How to ‘match the hatch’ and catch tench on maggots
Turn to maggots when the insects are hatching
IT CAN be hugely frustrating watching tench after tench roll in your swim while your float or bobbin refuses to move.
Often, though, this is the reality of summer tench fishing, especially on rich gravel pits. Look carefully around and you can often see why this is happening.
A multitude of insects will be buzzing around the margins and for every adult insect there could be 100, 1,000, or more juvenile creepy crawlies below the water surface. Tench are spoilt for choice and can wax fat on this rich food larder, slowly grazing along the bottom, feasting on naturals.
If you fish busy, well-stocked waters, the chances are the frustrations of the gravel pit angler will not be something you recognise but, even so, bait choice can be critical in transforming a good day into a red-letter session.
From my preamble, it probably comes as no surprise that for tench, especially at this time of the year, maggots and casters are my go-to baits.
As long as I am not being pestered by small fish then it really is that simple, but having the best quality bait and using it effectively are equally important.
RED IS BEST
Given a choice, I will always use mainly red maggots for tench, with just a sprinkling of other colours added to give some variety. Why red should be best, I do not know. Perhaps it is that this is the closest colour to many insect larvae? Red also stands out well when
there is a light covering of weed, making it easier for the tench to spot this free meal.
I tend to prefer to use live maggots rather than dead ones. While it can be rightly argued that some, perhaps most, live maggots will become hidden in weed, or under stones, this does not mean that the tench will not dig them out. Their sense of taste allows the fish to find even hidden food items. Having to work a little harder for the bait is no bad thing, and most fish, tench included, are more attracted to a wriggling bait. When using dead maggots, or casters, I tend to use roughly half the amount of bait that I would with live maggots. With the inactive baits, what I put in are exactly what the fish are going to find.
SMALL BAITS
The weed is well established now on the lakes that I fish and tench are incredibly adept at burying themselves and becoming stuck solid in the fronds. Using line and hooks that aren’t up to the job will mean that you cannot dictate the fight when a tench is hooked and, almost inevitably, this will lead to lost fish. While you would probably get more bites by scaling down, this is useless if you are going to lose fish, so I use adequate gear, even if this might cut down the number of bites.
Eight pound main line is my minimum when fishing for specimen tench, but balancing this with a small but strong hook is key. A bunch of five maggots on a size 10 is ideal for weedy waters. In clearer conditions I will swap to four grubs on a size 12, or even three on a size 14 if the venue is weed free.
A useful trick is to replace one of the maggots with a piece of rig foam cut to a similar shape as a grub. This will balance, or even pop-up the hookbait, making it more visible and easier for tench to inhale.
“I will always use mainly red maggots, with just a sprinkling of other colours”