Description : A olive green or bronze fish with rounded fins, small slimy scales and red eyes. Found at the bottom of stagnant still waters, often in the mud as tench can survive in waters with low oxygen levels. The females grow considerably larger than the males and lay up to 900 000 small green eggs from May to July. An ornamental variety of tench is found in UK waters, the golden tench. It is bright orange in colour, quite often with dark coloured spots

Angling information : The current UK record is 14 lb 7 oz 0 drm, and anything over around 7 lb is considered to be a specimen. The tench is a strong fighting fish so heavy tackle is required. When targeting the bigger fish specialist rods should be used with at least a 1 1/4 lb test curve. Good strong hooks and a main line of at least 4 lb breaking strain is recommended. As tench are bottom feeders baits must be presented hard on the lake bed. The favoured methods are float fishing with a waggler and for distance work the swimfeeder. The best baits include : worm, maggot, sweetcorn, caster and bread.

Tip : Look for small bubbles rising, particularly near lilly pads as a sign of tench activity.