I suppose it is no wonder that the fish are left alone in winter

Whilst the conditions might be poor, the fish will still be feeding to some extent and are thus catchable. I suppose it is no wonder that the fish are left alone in winter. I found the same when working in fisheries science, virtually all work had been carried out in the warmer months and next to nothing was known about what the fish did during the important winter period. With modern equipment there is no reason why the keen angler should not fish the whole winter through, putting in just as many hours as during the summer months. Whilst this is not really my cup of tea, I know of plenty of anglers who really relish the winter months for species which many consider to be at their prime in the summer. Although generally considered as a summer species, tench can, and are, caught right through the year. Most of the time though, it is carp anglers who appear to have the most success with tench, particularly in the winter months. Most of this success can be put down to two things in my opinion. That the carp anglers are fishing at night and that they are keeping a steady stream of bait going into the water when few other anglers are fishing concertedly. Certainly, on a couple of waters that I have fished the ability to keep some bait going into the water every few days keeps the tench active. That carp anglers tend to use large hard baits does not mean that these are the best baits for catching tench at this or any other time of year. If you can get away with using them, without the unwanted attentions of silver fish then maggots are without doubt the best bait. A couple of pints two or three times a week is generally enough to keep the tench looking for more and remaining catchable. You are also likely to have the added advantage of less eel trouble at night once the temperature begins to fall. Larger unnatural baits tend to need quite a bit of pre-baiting on waters which do not see their use by other anglers, and so are probably best avoided. Tench love weed and the weedier the water the better. In the winter months I would qualify this by saying that it is just as important to find shelter. This might mean that you have to fish with your back to the wind, but more often I have found the favoured spots to be those areas of the lake that rarely see any wind. The kind of spots I’m thinking about are where trees overhang the margin and in the lea of a wooded island. These areas have much more stable conditions than the open water and I believe it is this stability that the tench favour. Just like when winter carp fishing, I much prefer shallow fisheries to deep ones. The best winter tench fishing I ever had came from a water that is nowhere more than about four feet deep and most of the tench were caught from depths of less than three feet. This water did have the benefit though of being small and surrounded by trees, so the conditions were generally quite stable. These shallow waters also respond to the conditions very much quicker than deeper ones. Whilst this water is very moody in the summer months, in the winter a warm sunny day would almost guarantee at least a couple of tench. These fish were normally caught on carp tactics, by mistake it has to be said. The few times I did try fishing for them, they were just as easy to catch on a piece of corn or worm in the margins.

Although not generally considered as tench fisheries, rivers can really come into their own during the winter months. While we don’t think of catching big tench from rivers, they do have a long history of producing big fish if you know where to look. Often the fish are very localised and do not move around very much, but they are present. Keep an eye on local match reports and ask in your local shops to see if they have heard anything. Backwaters can be a good place to start. Look for little overgrown channels and old marinas, which although apparently completely overgrown are still likely to hold a good few tench. In fact, tench and rudd are almost synonymous with these little overgrown channels.