 
Sywell Reservoir
Tench
Tinca Tinca
A hard fighting, distinctive fish with olive green flanks, yellow bellow, red eyes, and large paddle like fins. With two barbules on upper lip.
A common fish in estate lakes, reservoirs, gravel pits, and some slow flowing rivers. It is most common in central and southern England, and in recent years, the tench has grown to enormous sizes in southern gravel pits, and reservoirs.
The Tenchfishers is a small group dedicated to the research, and pursuit of the tench as a species.
|
 |
|
The best approach for catching the tench in
the early years of this ‘new era’ was to pre-bait
a swim heavily, and then fish the area for two or three days
using the standard technique of feeder fished maggot or sweetcorn,
fishing 50-60 yards out, with a two rod set up. At this time
night fishing WAS allowed, and this approach produced a lot
of big fish.
 Around
the same time some anglers began pre-baiting with boilies, and
soon the resident tench were onto boilies as a food source,
and boilies incorporating scaled down carp tactics proved the
ultimate technique! The best bait for this approach was undoubtedly
the well known Richworth Tutti Frutti’s which seemed to
out score any other bait and it seemed at the time that the
more bait you put in the more you would catch!
By 1989, night fishing was banned at the venue
by Wellingborough and District Angling Club, (who held the fishing
rights). It appeared that more and more anglers were abusing
the night fishing ‘privilege’, by fishing swims
around the clock, and a night fishing ban appeared to be the
only sensible option, to give everyone a fair chance!
It was around this time, during the summer
of 1989, that I first came on the scene, and I began seriously
fishing Sywell for the first time, as the attraction of catching
large numbers of big hard fighting tench, proved irresistible.
So it was on June 16th very early in the morning,
in 1989, that I arrived at the reservoir for my first crack
at catching a big Sywell tench. I had already spent some time
a few weeks earlier walking the banks and looking for likely
hot spots to fish. My pre-season research led me to the North
Arm, where I had spotted a lot of tench moving about, and feeding
in the clear weedy shallows, and it was here that I decided
to concentrate my efforts for the first few sessions of the
new season. Over and above that, I knew very little about the
venue, and its secrets at this stage.
My first few sessions on the North Arm proved
fairly productive as I caught several tench up to nearly 7lb’s,
on feeder fished maggot. But I was soon to find out that my
exploits on the North Arm were fairly insignificant compared
to what was being caught on other parts of the reservoir. After
talking with the local anglers, I soon discovered that most
of the fish were being caught on the West Arm, about half a
mile further around the lake.
|
|
|
