My friend Graham has never caught a Tench so I took him to the lower pool at
Stevenstone where I have caught them in the past. A quiet place where you can
enjoy watching the wildlife as you fish. We were greeted immediately by a
kingfisher who kept us company all morning.
We started at 7 (the earliest you are allowed to fish
it) and straight away were into...Rudd, then more Rudd with the odd perch, and
even more Rudd. We fished hard on the bottom, used luncheon meat and
caught...Rudd. Not a Tench in sight although the needle bubbles appeared near
our baits, the Rudd took them before a Tench could get a sniff.
A juvenile buzzard kept calling an irritating
squeaking sound, unlike its parent call, and then we heard a call we couldn’t
recognise which edged closer and a couple of foxes appeared, looking really
surprised to see as as I don’t think anybody had fished there this year. They
weren’t as surprised as we were as the kennels for the local hunt is only about
200 yards away. At around 11 am, the bites fell off – just as I remembered from
a decade ago, so we decided to pack in and return in the future.
Frustrating, but Rudd are really beautiful when they get over half a pound, so
we weren't complaining, and Graham being an ardent fly fisherman hadn’t caught
a perch for years and they brought back happy memories.