Tench and a Personal Goal.

Fished an early session on Saturday and after a walk around the lake and a quick chat with Andy who had just banked a nineteen pound plus common, I made my way to a swim that looked promising. I was fishing the point opposite the island and I put both rods out with PVA bags on to two spots I'd caught from before. The persistent and chilly north easterly wind was still with us and the sheltered area at the front of the island seemed to draw the fish in, there were plenty of bubblers showing and I decided to change one rod over to a chod rig to try and get a quick bite. I cast this to areas where these fish had been bubbling with the hope they would return and did have a couple of sharp tugs through the session, too quick to be liners, my hook can't have been sharp enough to snag whatever was tasting the bait. All the action came on the PVA bag and bottom bait with a single Carp, which I did mistake for a Tench until it broke the surface and five good sized Tench.

One of the tench was in a rather sorry state with a badly mangled bottom lip, it's jaw bones visible poking through the skin, not nice to see.

At the end of February I opened this years carp account at Ryton and over the next few weekends I managed to pull one out here and one out there, a few weeks ago I realised that I'd caught at least one Carp from the lake every weekend since the account was opened, since then I've still managed to catch but I decided to make it a goal to achieve this and see how far I could get. Today I reached my tenth consecutive weekend with a Ryton Carp on the bank, all be it just short of seven pounds.

I'm not one to gripe about things but something I do want to have a moan about is at Morris's. I'd left a few saplings grow there last year so they could be pruned back to provide some stalking cover for this summer, these were pruned back earlier in the year and other anglers who regularly fish this peg had noticed, some liking the idea so I wasn't just doing it for myself. I was told today that someone has cut these down and now left the peg wide open to any fish that swims past in the margins making it crap for stalking, thanks!!