Coarse fishing Northwest:
When fishing 18" over depth I seemed to attract the bream, tench, perch and the odd carp however, if I was to fish any less than 18", the bites would still come but not as often. Fishing over depth was the best practice by far on this venue and produced more results. Fishing 2lb line and a 1.5lb bottom all seems a bit light for the size of fish that we was catching and on some occasions it was, we lost fish due to the bottom hooklink breaking especially when hooked into a tench. After losing some good fish due to the line breaking I changed over and used 3lb mainline and a 2lb bottom but the fish seemed to shy off from that, we soon changed back to the lighter stuff.
Over the past 8 years all my fishing has been aimed at catching carp, at the end of March 2008 I shelved my carp gear to do some general coarse fishing for a change, I'm glad I did too. I think it was Gary from Southport Anglers who said-There was something magical about fishing for tench on an early spring morning. Gary was right, there is something magical about it.
LOL@ya!! It's not the biggest tench in the world but when your using a 1.5lb bottom the fight can be better than bringing in a 20lb carp on 12lb line, pound for pound I reakon tench are probably the stronger fish anyway! I fished the Dingle solid for 5 months and caught more fish in that time than I have in the last 8 years put together, which has incidently inspired me to do it again next year (09). I already know this water as I've learned from my past carp fishing experiences and like any other fishing water in Bolton, or any water for that fact, they each have their own 'best spots'. I tried most pegs on the Dingle and found only 3 to be productive, one of which is prolific, if anybody's reading this who knows the Dingle Lodge, they will know very well which pegs I'm talking about.
