Success !

Not the fabled tench, but after Cooky Boy had a netful of bream yesterday, my plans were compromised.

Do I stick it out for tench with the likelihood of a blank or do I put a feeder rod out fifty yards with a good chance of of few bites ?

I took the easy option and went for the bream. Arrived early, very little activity, so I fired some groundbait out, half of which broke up on launch. Pathetic.

I continued to dick about for another hour before sorting myself out in to some kind of reasonably competent fishing. Three hours later nothing.

I changed my hookbait from pellet to worm and the tip started to bounce. It bounced and off every cast without pulling round properly for half an hour or so, so I shortened the trace to about four inches and pulled the back stop tight to the feeder. That'll fix 'em. 

It did. Next cast a proper bite and a self hooked bream about 6lb the result.

That seemed to do the trick and most casts resulted in either the feeder being attacked and the associated liners or a hooked fish.

It was a lovely day in the sun and I ended up with thirteen bream, most 5-6lb with the best maybe 7lb ish. Bit of action for a change.

They'd pretty much all spawned out and were a bit less chunky than a few weeks ago, but welcome nonetheless. 

Now let's catch some tench.