01.06.17

Guru's Gary Newman gets a tench fishing surprise!

An early summer tench session resulted in a big surprise for Tackle Guru’s specimen expert, Gary Newman, when a typical tench like drop-back bite resulted in Cluster - a 40lb 10oz mirror carp!

After a busy season in his role of Korda and Tackle Guru TV Production and Project Manager, Gary who is 40 from Chesham in Buckinghamshire, gave us a rundown on his surprise capture!

“With a lot of overseas filming coming up at the end of May and into June I decided to start my tench campaign earlier than usual at a Colne Valley lake. The weather was still very cold for my first weekend and I blanked but had seen some signs of fish in another area of the lake.

“When I returned the following weekend the conditions were slightly better and I opted to fish on the back of the north-easterly wind. I’d fished this swim a lot and knew that there was a bar at around 60 yards and that it ended in front of me, and this corner of the bar was a spot which I’d caught well from in the past.

“I baited with plenty of caster and some 4mm SSP Baits pellets, and opted to fish the Method over the top, with hair-rigged double rubber caster on a size 12 Guru MWGB hook to 10lb braid and 10lb Touchdown main line. That weekend I managed to catch three tench – two small males of around 5-6lb plus a 9lb 1oz female."

Casters - a great holding bait for tench, and carp like them too!

This 8lb 9oz male tench was the kind of fish Gary was targeting.

“I returned the following weekend and managed to get back in the same swim and was confident of catching using the same method and bait. At 6am on the Saturday morning I received my first action, a dropback, and the fish came towards me but I could feel that it had some weight and was thinking that it was a decent tench, but once it came closer in it soon became apparent that it was far bigger than a tench as it just held its weight and plodded around in front of me and after five minutes I caught a glimpse of what looked to be a good carp and one which I thought I recognized.

“I had to take it easy on the tackle I was using, with a 1.75lb test curve rod, but around 5 minutes after first seeing it I just about managed to get it into my 36 inch net, and I could see that it was a fish known as Cluster, and it looked big!

“This is one of the old originals and probably the most sought-after fish in the lake. I knew that my 30lb scales would be no good, but luckily a carp angler was fishing close by and we weighed her at 40lb 10oz, which was my biggest ever mirror! She looked absolutely stunning.

“The rest of the weekend proved to be quite productive for the tench and I landed eight, including several over 8lb, with the best two being an 8lb 10oz female plus one of my biggest ever males at 8lb 9oz.

“This method does seem to pick up a few carp, and often the better ones as my last three on this gear have averaged over 37lb.”

Gary has landed several carp over 30lb on the Guru MWGB hooks.

Another 9lb tinca from the same trip for our specimen Guru!

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