All fish
Carp, tench & river giants🇬🇧 Native🌱 Good for beginners

Tench

Tinca tinca · Also called Doctor fish

Olive-green, red-eyed and powerful. Tench mean early summer mornings by a misty lake.

An olive-green tench swimming over gravel
Photo: Karelj · Public domain
Typical size
2 lb – 5 lb
A good one
6 lb (8 lb+ is a specimen)
Length
30 – 50 cm
Best time
May to September, especially dawn

🏆 British record: 15 lb 3 oz 6 dr (6.899 kg), Private fishery, Staines, Surrey (2001)

How to spot it

Deep olive-green to bronze, with tiny scales buried in thick slime, a small red eye and big rounded 'paddle' fins. Two small barbels at the corners of the mouth.

Males have huge, spoon-shaped belly fins; females' are smaller and pointed.

Where to find it

Lakes, gravel pits, estate lakes, canals and slow rivers.

Tench love weed. Fish beside lily pads, reed margins, weed beds and gravel bars. Look for 'needle' bubbles: fine streams of tiny bubbles that tench send up as they feed.

Find waters near you

Feeding habits

Tench grub on the bottom for bloodworm, snails, shrimps and other small creatures.

They feed best from late spring to late summer, at dawn and on warm, muggy days. They slow right down in winter.

Best time: May to September, especially dawn. Warm, overcast days.

Favourite baits

  • Sweetcorn

  • Red maggots and casters

  • Worms

    Lobworm tail or dendrobaenas.

  • Bread flake

  • Pellets and small boilies

How to catch it

Lift method float

Margins and lily-pad swims

Rod
12–13 ft float rod
Reel
Fixed-spool (3000)
Line
5–6 lb main line
Hook
Size 12–14
Bait
Sweetcorn, maggots or worm

Fix a peacock waggler by the bottom end only, set it slightly over-depth and put one big shot about 5 cm from the hook. When a tench picks up the bait, the shot lifts and the float rises and lies flat. Strike then!

Maggot feeder

Open water and gravel pits

Rod
11–12 ft feeder rod
Reel
Fixed-spool (4000)
Line
6–8 lb main line
Hook
Size 14 with 2–3 maggots or a fake corn
Bait
Maggots and casters

Fill a blockend feeder with maggots and cast to the same spot every 10 minutes to build a carpet of bait. Keep the line tight to a quivertip or bite alarm.

Handling and rules

Tench are tough, but use a mat for big ones and keep them wet. That slime protects them from infection, so don't wipe it off.

📜 Rules and seasons

On rivers, streams and drains in England and Wales there's a close season for coarse fish from 15 March to 15 June. Most lakes, ponds and canals are open all year, but check the water's own rules.

Check the official rules on gov.uk

Watch: catching tench

Videos open on YouTube. We don't make them, but we think they're good.