Tony Gibson’s Monster May Tench Haul

17 June, 2021 | Match & Coarse | Angler Blogs | Tips | Articles | News

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Tony Gibson’s Monster Tench Haul

Specimen ace Tony Gibson has just enjoyed another superb session targeting tench on a Cambridgeshire gravel pit – landing more than 25 tench to 9lb 15oz in a 48-hour session. Below, Tony sheds light on the tactics, baits and rigs behind the catch to help you put more tench in the back of your net…

Tony says:

For this trip I decided to target a different area on the same large Cambridgeshire gravel pit where I’d enjoyed a previous good catch of tench a few weeks back.

Using the marker rod, I found two clear areas in the weed at a range of about 50 yards and decided to bait one with a Spod mix and fish two rods on this with 12mm CompleX-T hookbaits tipped with flavoured artificial Enterprise Tackle corn. While for the other spot I baited up just with 15mm CompleX-T boilies and fished a 15mm CompleX-T dumbell wafter tipped with a small 10mm dumbell pop-up which produced a very slow-sinking hookbait. Each Spod mix was a blend of different Dynamite pellets (6mm CompleX-T, 2mm Swim Stim Betaine Green and F1 Sweet and 3mm Tiger Nut pellets), Dynamite Sweet & Milky Pulses and Particles, with chopped and crumbed CompleX-T boilies and a good dose of Liquid Worm Carp Food and a cupful of Worm groundbait stirred in and allowed to soak through before Spodding out.

The vast majority (19) of the tench were caught within the first 24 hours of the session, with only another half a dozen fish caught after a heavy hail storm that occurred around lunchtime on the second day of the session. In the productive first 24 hours I had 12 tench between 5lb and 6lb 15oz, four 7’s, two 8’s (8lb and 8lb 8oz) plus a proper monster of 9lb 15oz.

I decided to try the one rod on a boilie only situation to see if it might produce a better stamp of fish. While it did produce the 8lb 8oz very early in the session, the two rods fished over the regularly baited Spod spot produced the vast majority of the tench, including the 8lb fish and the big one at 9lb 15oz.

 

 

My Tackle: 

12ft Carp Spirit Magnum rods

Big Pit reels

(0.35mm) Carp Spirit ‘Velocity’ mono mainline

3oz flat pear leads mounted on safety lead clips

Bottom bait 12mm boilie/corn rig: 8 inches of 20lb “Combi-soft” with the last half-inch of coating by the hook peeled off, tied knotless-knot to a size 8 Carp Spirit V-Curve hook.

Balanced bottom bait 15mm wafter/10mm pop-up rig: 10 inches of 20lb “Combi-soft” with the last half-inch of coating by the hook peeled off, tied knotless-knot to a size 8 Carp Spirit Long Shank hook.