Tench are not the easiest fish to catch on shallow canals, as they are far from the dominant species. I would say 70% of canals hardly have any tench in at all. From my experience, clear, weedy canals, with low boat traffic seem to have the most tench residing.
The Midlands region has hundreds of miles of canal systems around Walsall, Birmingham and Dudley, to name a few, the Wyley and Essington, Daw End and Dudley no 1 and no 2 canals. There is also the Erewash canal in the Nottingham area. These canals are all good starting points. Usually, they only have a couple of boats pass through per day. These canals hold good numbers of tench. All you need to do is a bit of background work and make sure you’re fishing in the right areas.
Choosing the Correct Peg
Once you are in the correct place, it’s fairly easy. Look for wide parts and features like bushes, lily pads and reed beds. On this session, I went for a few hours on the Daw End Canal in Brownhills. I chose a peg in the “wides” by a bush where I know there are some tench about. This session produced good fishing over a few decent hours for 21lbs. This included four tench to 5lbs and a lovely rudd of 1lb 8oz as well as some dumpy perch.
Baits and Baiting Approach
My approach to catching tench on this session was to take various baits. This included worms, maggots (dead and alive), casters and some sweetcorn. I would fish two lines at 13m. One towards the bush and a back-up line in the opposite direction.
I start by introducing two balls of my favourite canal ground bait mix, Bait Tech Pro Natural Bream and Fine Lake Dark 50/50 on each line. This is laced with finely chopped worms, casters, sweetcorn and dead red maggots. The reason I use dead maggots in these canals is because they are silty and weedy. I want the maggots to lie on top, visible to passing tench. Live maggots would bury themselves out of sight. If I catch one or some smaller fish and the fishing drops off, I will top up with another ball and move on to the next line. Rotating lines like this gives you the best chance.
Rigs and Elastic
The tench I’m targeting are large and not caught very often, so they do tend to pull back. Most of the fish are in the 2 to 6lb bracket. With this in mind, we need to gear up. I usually set up a heavy rig and a medium heavy rig as below:
Heavy Rig This is the rig that I always start my sessions with.
- Elastic: Edge 18-20 Hollow Latex elastics through a carp top two kit. I always use a puller bung so I can tighten it up if needed, this also allows me not to bump the odd big bream or perch you usually come across.
- Line: 0.15 or 0.165 Edge Premium Mono straight through to the hook, I do not want any weak points in the rig.
- Float: 0.4g Edge C7 Commercial Margin Float,
- Hook: Size 13, Kamasan B711 strong hook for a good hook hold and big baits/multiple baits.
- Shotting: 5 or 6 strung out No 9s evenly spaced,
Medium Heavy Rig I move on to this if the fishing is hard, fishing the above rig.
- Elastic: Edge 12-14 Hollow Latex elastics through a carp top two kit. I always use a puller bung so I can tighten it up if needed, this also allows me not to bump the odd big bream or perch you typically come across.
- Line: 0.12 Edge Premium Mono straight through to the hook. I do not want any weak points in the rig.
- Float: 0.4g Edge C7 Commercial Margin Float.
- Hook: Size 16, Sensas 3405 Black Nickel for single baits if hard like maggot or caster, small bit of worm.
- Shotting: 5 or 6 strung out No 9s evenly spaced.
