With the promise of summer just round the corner not all anglers flock to the carp venues that promise the same thing every week, they look for a different thrill. After a winter of virtual dormancy (which includes some anglers) the tench (Tinca tinca) is on the move, looking for food and now is the time to target this hard fighting fish. Which is dark olive colour, has red eyes, a huge paddle of a tail and a British record that stands at 14 lbs. 7 ozs.

Your first job is to locate a water that holds a good head of tench and then look for features on that water which will hold them, such as island swims, banks, drop-offs and bars. These are best located before the start of a session and to build up a picture of the area the best tool is the feeder rod with a braided line and a 1-oz lead. The depths can be calculated by counting down the time the lead takes to hit the deck and a slow retrieve will give a good idea of the consistency of the bottom, weedbeds and gravel bars. This time of the year over feeding can kill your sport so go steady, introduce ground bait and loose feed sparingly through the feeder with a few quick casts at the start of the session. Tackle should not be too light and 4 or 5 lbs. line to a size 16 or 18 hook on an open ended feeder rig is heavy enough and it will also cope with the odd carp that may turn up.

When the fish are feeding hard a snap link swivel to clip the feeder on can speed things up, by having a spare feeder already baited up or a quick change to a plain lead if enough feed has already gone in. Worm, caster, maggot or sweet corn are prime baits and a little of what they fancy plugged into the middle of an open ended feeder is the way to get them started.

If you are going to fish the waggler on a tippy float rod scale down to 3 lbs. line and 2.5 lbs. hook link. A good long float (10 - 12 inches) will counteract any surface drift with the bulk shot at two thirds of the depth and 3 or 4 number 10 or 12s below to let the bait fall slower through the "taking area". Plumb the depth of the swim and fish overdepth by 6", or more if surface drift is a problem, in order to present a static bait. With both the feeder and waggler pick two or three areas to feed, such as the bottom of a bank or close to an island, so that when bites dry up in one you can switch to the other.

Don't be too worried if the tench seem a bit slow starting to feed. Often in early summer tench (and carp) don't get going until the middle of the afternoon, after the sun has been on the water for some hours, but whatever happens enjoy your day and don't forget to tell us at www.tackleworld.co.uk about your catches.