An Olive Beauty

Since my early success at Findern my tench fishing exploits have distinctly faltered. So what better venue to kick off again that one of the club pools with a reputation for being hard. During one of my dog walks earlier in the week I had spotted a swim I had not noticed before and quite liked the look of it. So after work yesterday I packed the tackle into the car and headed off up to Shardlow. For bait I had casters and hemp plus some sweetcorn. There were a lot of cars about when I arrived but they were all fishing the pool on the other side of the road on which the carp appear to be feeding well at the moment.
I tackled up a waggler on my 14' float rod, the intention was to fish virtually under my rod tip beyond the fringe of weeds, the extra length I reasoned would help me keep the fish away from snags. Double caster first when on the size 14 barbless and I was soon getting knocks on the float and some bites which I just could not hit. Nevertheless activity on the float makes the time fly and it was soon 8pm. I had noticed that periodically the swim was fizzing so I hoped that some tincas were moving in. After catching a perchlet on casters I decided to go for double corn in the hope this would attract a tench. As the light was going the float slipped away and a good fish was on. I could not get it's head up and was certain this was a carp as it was so powerful. Fortunately it chose to run out into the pool and I prayed that there were no hidden snags. Playing it carefully there was no way I could see this as a tinca but on 4lb hooklength did not want to try bullying it up for gander. There was some excitement when the fish finally went for the weeds and I held grimly on but then it surfaced. A tench. With it's head finally up I soon got it in the net. It was in pristimne condition and weighed in at 5lb 3oz. This was a fish I was really pleased with having winkled it out from a difficult water. Lets hope for a few more over the coming weeks.