Tench fishing is becoming more and more popular in modern day angling. The bright green shine of the beautiful tench or the golden shine on an early morning day. These fish are beautiful and exciting to catch. I’ll give you a good starting point on how to catch these stunning fish, to hope you bag yourself a few on your next visit.

What is a Tench?

The Tench, Doctor Fish, Tinca Tinca all names of the Tench. They’re part of the Cypriniformes family and often found in Eurasia and Western Europe. These often take the appearance of beautiful green (often very slimy) appearance and found in still water and slow moving parts of the rivers. The tench fish can service in low oxygen level waters, where other fish often struggle to survive like carp. There are other forms of Tench like the exquisite golden tench and some newer variables found like the ‘blue tench’ found at anglers paradise. The blue tench isn’t recognized as a legitimate species of Tench but it’s slowly becoming more popular with breeders.

Where to Catch Tench

Tench are found in still water lakes and slower moving rivers. I have caught tench is faster moving rivers, but it’s never a target species and very rare for this to occur. The common misconception is that tench only stay in the weedy areas. Although this is true in the case is holds lots of natural food, tench move around the lake like any other fish. In fact, all my biggest tench has been from open water.

I think one thing to remember if you’re fishing on a still water, the smaller the lake, the more I try to find nice features and weedier areas. In the larger lakes, I find big open water with a nice amount of bait. Each lake can be different, but I’ve always been successful. With river fishing, I like to find larger bodies of slightly slower moving water and preferably non-tidal for best results. If you’re looking at wanting a great river fishing experience, check out moon river in Martham. Book your stay as it has some of the best fishing on the Norfolk broads

What Rods Do I Need for Tench Fishing

What rod you need for tench fishing is solely dependent on the style of tench fishing. I don’t believe you need any specific tench rod, I’d recommend a decent feeder rod capable of chucking out weights above 60g if you are feeder fishing (from £30-£300) and a 1.25TC rod (£30-£300). If you’re after some of the bigger lump, It’s not unheard of to use carp rods, although, I find them a little too heavy and consider a lighter rod much more enjoyable and soft when playing them smaller fish. With the reel, honestly, just use your normal feeder reel, you don’t need a massive pit reel and something around the 4000 size is ideal. Tench fishing can often be similar to match style pleasure fishing.

What Rigs Work For Tench Fishing?

There are so many rigs that work for tench fishing. I will give you my favourite two rigs for still waters and one for rivers that I’ll use just about anywhere. There’s minor changes I’ll make to these as a session progresses. Just to reiterate, there are other rigs I’ll use, but these should get you in good stead.

Helicopter Rig

The helicopter rig also known as the heli rig, has been a tried and tested method for years and is my go to for tench fishing. If you’re unsure how to tie a heli rig, I recommend picking up the korum heli rig pre-made rigs, they’re fantastic, and I never have to tie another rig. The one thing I find is a hidden trick I’ve discovered over the years, the hook links on a heli rig are best fished very short. By very short, I mean 3 inches. The bites are so much more responsive and much more difficult to lose fish. I will occasionally increase the length if it’s a very hot bright day, where fishing conditions are not ideal.

When it comes to feeder size and style, a swim open end feeder is my go to. I prefer a feeder that isn’t too rigid and needs to be flexible. You can adjust weight and size depending on the day. I start off with a medium size feeder, around 30g.

The Float Lift Method

The simple lift method has been around for generations, but there’s a time and place to use this method. The bases of the rig are simple, over shot your float to roughly double what the float recommends. Try to put some of the shot around 4–5 inches from your hook bait. When the fish picks up your bait, the shot will also rise and the now unweighted float will lift out the water and sometimes lay flat on the surface. From this point, be prepared as it’s followed by the float flying under the water, this is the time to strike.

If I fish this method, it’s only ever in smaller, quaint fishing lakes or nice corners of the lakes. You can draw a lot of the smaller tench through this method, and I prefer this method early mornings and late in the evening. To make it more manageable, I wouldn’t fish the lift method in deep water, as float fishing can be challenging.

Simple Feeder Rig With Twisted Line For River Fishing

There’s nothing complicated about my river fishing rig, and rarely do I ever deviate. The only change i make is the size of the hook links. Often starting around 30cm in size and often does the job through the whole session.

The bases of this rig are creating a ‘boom’ or ‘flickout’ where the line is twisted, creating a kick held in place by a shot. The hook link is placed on the end of this twisted line. The feeder is almost always running. Check out this guide to fishing this rig. To add, this isn’t exactly a rig for tench, it’s hard to really have a specific rig to catch different species on the river.

Scaled Down Carp Rigs for Tench Fishing

If you look at the record tench fish or very large tench, they’re caught by carp anglers or anglers fishing with carp tactics. Big tench are commonly found in carp waters being fed with carp baits. You can either fish for them using the offerings fed out by the carp anglers like corn and pellet. Or you can just fish with smaller boilies, wafters and popups. If I do fish for tench this way, I almost always scale down to 10lb mainline, 1-2oz lead, and a basic bolt rig. My favourite bait is the mainline tutti fruity boilie 10mm

What Are My Favourite Baits For Tench Fishing

This one isn’t overly difficult. I prefer natural baits 99% of the time when fishing for tench. Worms and maggots are the first thing I put into my bait bag before a session. I also either use gold pro bream groundbait or Sensas 3000 tench groundbait and brown breadcrumb. This is a 50/50 split. I even use natural baits on the bigger carp waters, fishing the feeder for tench. I don’t think the fish often see these types of baits and feel more confident feeding.

My biggest regret in my fishing life was fishing a big carp venue and I didn’t have my weighing scales with me. I had two tench both easily over 10lbs with 10 mins of each other. They would’ve been by PB and to this day, I haven’t had a tench that size again. Lesson learned, bring your scales as you never know what can come out.

Conclusion

This is my quick go to guide for tench fishing. Although there are so many variables to fishing for tench, I’ve very rarely had a bad session. I’d love to see some of your catches and what are your go-to methods are when tench fishing. Comment below with what your style of tench fishing is and any venues that you recommend. Check out our other guides to UK freshwater fish