Tench

Quick facts

How to identify it

A deep, muscular body covered in tiny scales set in thick mucus, so the fish feels smooth and rubbery rather than rough. Colour ranges from dark olive to golden bronze, with an orange-red eye, rounded fins and a small, slightly upturned mouth carrying a single tiny barbel at each corner. The tail is broad and barely forked. Males have distinctly enlarged, spoon-shaped pelvic fins and a thickened second fin ray. The tench is hard to confuse with anything: crucian carp are golden with large, visible scales and no barbels, and common carp have four barbels and a long dorsal fin.

Where it lives

Tench love warm, shallow, weedy still waters: lakes, ponds, gravel pits, oxbows, marshy backwaters and slow canals with soft, silty bottoms and dense lily beds, reeds and submerged weed. In rivers they hold in the slowest backwaters and side arms, rarely in current. They are remarkably tolerant of low oxygen and warm water and can survive summers that kill other species, but they are much less active in cold water. Typical holding spots are the margins along reed lines, the edge of lily pads, gaps in the weed and shallow silt bays where feeding fish send up streams of tiny bubbles. They stay close to the bottom and feed by rooting through the silt.

Season and behaviour

Tench are a late-spring and summer fish. They wake up when the water passes about 12 °C in April–May and feed hardest from late May to September; the very best weeks are usually June and July, before and after spawning. Spawning happens in warm shallows over weed from late May into July when the water reaches 18–20 °C, often in several batches. The feeding rhythm is strongly crepuscular: the first two hours after dawn are the prime time, with a second window at dusk and into the first hours of the night on warm, still evenings. In autumn feeding tails off, and in winter tench become semi-dormant in the silt, so cold-season captures are rare.

Fishing methods

The traditional approach is a lift-method float rig fished in the margins: a light waggler or a pole float, a single shot set just off the bottom and the bait on the deck, so that the float lifts or lies flat when a tench picks up the bait. Watch for pin-prick bubbles and feed little and often. Feeder fishing with a small groundbait or method feeder is the modern standard on larger lakes and gravel pits, cast to gaps in the weed or the base of a marginal shelf. Light ledger rigs with a bomb and a short hooklink, sometimes with a bite alarm, cover night sessions. Use a through-actioned rod, 0.18–0.22 mm line, strong hooks and a balanced rig — a good tench powers into the weed on the first run. Pre-baiting a swim for a few evenings pays off enormously.

Baits and lures

Tench are not fussy but they are cautious. Sweetcorn is the number-one bait almost everywhere, followed by worms — a lobworm tail or two redworms — maggots and casters. Bread flake, soft pellets and small boilies in fishmeal or sweet flavours pick out the bigger fish on pressured waters. Feed a dark, fine groundbait laced with casters, hemp, chopped worm and corn; too much heavy feed fills them up. A single grain of corn or a small pop-up balanced over the silt is often the decisive presentation.

Tips from the bank

1. 01Be on the water before first light — the first two hours after dawn are worth the rest of the day put together.
2. 02Look for streams of tiny bubbles rising along the reed line; that is a tench rooting in the silt, so fish right on top of them.
3. 03Fish the margins: tench feed within a rod length of the bank, so keep quiet and stay back from the edge.
4. 04Pre-bait a spot for two or three evenings with hemp, corn and groundbait before you fish it.
5. 05Set the float so the bait rests on the bottom and strike at the lift, not the dip.
6. 06Use a soft, through-actioned rod and a strong hook — the first run goes straight for the lilies.
7. 07Rain and warm, overcast, muggy days are excellent; bright, cold and windy days are poor.

Where to catch Tench

Waters where Shoalmap's fishing reports list Tench.

• Grauklingenbach
• Devojka sa krčagom
• Tisa
• Tresetište
• Čik
• Čonopljansko jezero
• Akumulacija Svetićevo
• Begej
• Csertői halastó
• Begej
• Kuka
• Šumensko ezero
• Matyér–Subasai-főcsatorna
• Κηφισός
• Λίμνη Μεγαλόπολης-Λίμνη Τραπεζούντας
• Μονοδένδρι
• Lekma
• Lekma
• Fosso Vorga
• Meleg-víz
• Timiș
• Butižnica
• Horgásztó
• Vágói-csatorna
• VII. (Büdös-tói)-csatorna
• Arroyo Codosero
• Arroyo de Valbueno
• Mosztonga-csatorna
• Kígyós-főcsatorna
• Körös-éri-főcsatorna

Related species

• Crucian carp
  Carassius carassius

  The golden, shy little carp of weedy ponds and forgotten backwaters.

• Common carp
  Cyprinus carpio

  The heavyweight of still and slow water that built a whole branch of angling.

• Common bream
  Abramis brama

  The bronze shoal fish of big rivers and lakes — the feeder angler's bread and butter.

• Rudd
  Scardinius erythrophthalmus

  The golden, red-finned surface feeder of weedy lakes and summer evenings.

Frequently asked questions