Few anglers target tench on rivers, but two Thames anglers have got among them with spectacular results.
First up, Mike Perrin landed a 10lb 12oz specimen, the largest ever reported from the venue. He caught it from a shallow gravelly area on a bread hookbait.
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“I saw a handful of tench feeding alongside a few very large chub, and having baited the spot for a few days with pellets and bread flake, I dropped a bread hookbait over the top,” Mike told us.
“Soon after I hooked a hard-fighting fish that turned out to be a huge tench – bigger than one of 10lb 2oz that I caught when I was a kid.”
Duncan Hayward followed hot on Mike’s heels with a sublime 9lb 14oz fish from the same river.
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“Early in the season I’d seen several big tincas while scouting for carp,” he told us.
“After catching a couple of ‘nuisance’ carp, I was starting to feel I’d missed the window for a true big ’un, but I was elated when I peered into my net in the early hours of the morning and was met by the sight of this huge tench.
“It all seems very surreal, and I’m a bit overwhelmed!”
Duncan took his fish on a scaled-down carp rig, using a paste-wrapped bottom bait tipped with a yellow ‘topper’.
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