With my Syndicate water not starting until 1st June and Westbere my big pit being a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) so no fishing until 16th June Ive been left with a couple of months to do some other fishing.

With some top Tench waters on my Mid Kent fisheries ticket I always take in a few trips for them during late spring early summer.  Milton pan is one such water and was featured in Catching the Impossible where Martin Bowler managed a large number of big Tench including fish to over 10lb.

This weekend iv been “on the pan” in a swim called Bretts.  On arriving iv mixed up a bag of Hemp n Hali crush and a bag of Tigerfish.  To this iv added a tin of Hemp n Maples and some 4mm Elliptical pellets and given a generous squirt of CSL liquid, so creating a big bed of particles with a lovely aroma.  For this amount of groundbait it really does pay to use a drill and groundbait whisks as it makes life so much easier with making a nice airy groundbait.  Being an ex match angler I do tend to take my time over my groundbait mixing, coming back to it to add more water and whisking over a period of an hour or so before eventually making it up into balls for pulting out.
   
The area Ive fished has few features so iv opted to bait up at a comfortable 30 yards, at this distance iv been able to keep everything very accurate from baiting up to positioning of the hookbaits.  On the right hand side of the baited area iv also spodded maggots.  I have spread my rods 5 yrds apart with different baits on each rod.  A 10mm Pineapple pop up on the left, a bit of fake corn tipped off with a couple of maggots in the middle and a maggot swimfeeder with a maggot line aligner and two maggots on the third rod over the spodded maggots on the right hand side.

By evening the two rods with maggots had accounted for a number of eels, always a downside to using the grubs but thats a price you have to pay as they are a superb Tench bait.  Just before darkness I had two Tench of around 5lb and that was the last of the action apart from a few more eels until the next morning when I finally connected with a decent Tench and a pb for me of 9lb 6oz.  I was surprised to see it already carrying spawn, this may be carried over from last year.  That was my last action as I had to be away shortly after catching it.  I do love catching big Tench, they are such a beautiful fish.