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Top Fishing Baits for Tench During Spring
Spring is the time of year where the green-flanked and red-eyed tench comes into the minds of many an angler up and down the country, as now hard-fighting tench really get on the feed after disappearing throughout the winter months and unlike later in the summer, spring tench are a lot less wary.
With this in mind, we, here at Team AD have decided to gather the top fishing baits for tench fishing during the spring months. These baits cover different methods from feeder fishing at long range to float fishing close to the margins, so consider that when also picking the right tench fishing bait for your spring campaigns.
What are the Best Baits for Tench Fishing in Spring?
When it comes to choosing tench baits ideal for springtime angler, there are a vast amount of small baits to consider, ranging from maggots, casters, hemp, corn and so on! Be sure not to just select a variety for your tench fishing trip but a lot of bait too and it is surprising how much bait you can get through once the tench turn up in numbers. Several pints of both maggots and casters are often needed along with particle baits.
Great as a bottom bait, groundbait is ideal for your float fishing or ledgering tactics where you put down a carpet of bait on the bottom.
You do not tend to catch a tench off the surface or mid-water, so adding groundbait either balled in or via a feeder and then fishing on the bottom over the top of this will often lead to success.
Many anglers turn to groundbait when bites start to cease as you can add a couple of groundbait balls that contain some corn, sweet additive or some maggots and it tends to do when during spring months.
Krill flavoured baits do well at some venues in Spring, especially loaded in a method feeder. A bonus of using a feeder if that you use less groundbait so you can easily use half a bag in a day session.
Read more about bait flavours in our Best Baits for Spring Fishing guides:
What is the Best Bait for Carp Fishing in Spring?
The Best Baits for Canal Fishing in Spring
Maggots are easily one of the most favoured baits to use for tench during the early season months, ideally between March to the end of May. During this time, tench are usually caught on smaller hookbaits baits such as the red maggot.
Many tench anglers with bait with a maggot-feeder rig with bright red maggots as they grab the attention of the fish both visibly and through their natural scent.
A benefit of using maggots for tench fishing is that they are much easier to store than casters, making them more convenient for long hours on the bankside.
Try to use the freshest and cleanest maggots when stopping off at your local fishing tackle shop on the way to the venue. Be sure to change the maize flour you store maggots in so they do not become sour or over sweat as this will deter tench.
If the maggots alone are not getting you bites, try to add some fishy additive such as shellfish or squid liquids to a pint of maggots.
Unfortunately, some anglers that are adopting ledgering methods when angling can find worms to be quite difficult to fish with as bait worms tend to work its way off the hook through wriggling. This can be overcome by cutting larger lobworms down and using a hair rig with a rubber caster when adding the worms to the hook.
Tench do love worms so if you are happy to work with them on the hook, go for it but also try to avoid using worms as bait if you are fishing at a venue with eels as tench won’t have a chance to even sniff your bait!
It is also advised to fish lobworms in an open-ended feeder (see more on feeder types here) along with some groundbait.
Although it has been used a lot over the years, sweetcorn is still a great bait to tempt tench. With carp anglers using sweetcorn in spod mixes in spring, using corn as a hookbait when tench fishing means that carp anglers have already pre-baits for you!
It is advised to bait with a couple of large kernels on the hook for float fishing methods. The yellow of the corn makes it a nice visible bait in the spring. With this in mind, a small tin of corn is more than enough to get you through a whole session of tench fishing. You can also try using the corn as loose feed by throwing in half a dozen pieces of corn after a bite, keeping the fish interested.
If you are feeder fishing, add your corn mix to either a maggot feeder or open-ended feeder and cast this bait a little further out and tench won’t be in the margins during the early season.
Offering a nutty scent to the water, hemp is good at bringing tench to your swim even though they tend to just blow the food back out rather than swallowing it. Use hemp throughout the day, little and often to keep the scent through your swim.
Although lots of tench can be caught on boilies, many anglers find that this bait choice does not hold the tench in their swim for long during spring. Instead, opt for using much smaller baits as this gets the tench feeding in your swim longer, providing more fish and times to catch.
Do not rule out the use of boilies as a tench bait completely. Boilies are a useful spring bait when there are lots of small silverfish in the same swim and your target tench. The size of boilies helps to rule out catching these smaller fish and wasting both your time and opportunity to catch a tench.
We suggest small 12mm sizes boilies that have fishmeal or fishy scents as during spring the natural baits do well. Krill and squid flavours are favourites.
Some anglers suggest avoiding pellets as they often attract bream and carp instead of tench, however, you can use pellets with groundbait or spod mixes for tench but this tends to work best when the waters are warming and we get closer to the summer climate.
If you are going to bait with pellets for tench, be sure to get yourself some pellet oil or bait oil to add to your pellet mix as this will really give you the advantage when wanting to attract tench with spod methods, especially if you use flavours tench love.
If you also fish for carp in spring, you may find that occasionally, especially if you use yellow pop-ups that you might get bites from tench. During the early season, tench will bite for floating bait, especially on chod rigs.
Pop-ups do well in early spring as they are more visible and therefore easier for the tench to see when fishing over silty bottoms.
You can also catch some big tench on fake or artificial baits such as fake maggots, fake casters or fake sweetcorn. Rubber casters seem to really be popular with tench and many anglers combine these rubber casters with live baits such as worms or maggots to help with bait presentation.
Another benefit of fake baits, especially rubber casters and maggots is that both when alive can be difficult to hook and silverfish easily remove these live baits before they even reach the tench. With rubber casters, this is not the case as you can cast stronger without as much concern for losing your bait. You also get to reuse your artificial baits time and time again!
Do not be concerned about your choice in fake bait boasting little natural smell as you can always try popping some liquid baits additives to your plastic baits, or just fish them straight from the packet next to some natural baits.
Try using your artificial baits mounted on a hair rig with three rubber casters mounted on a size 12 hook.
Is one bait not working out for you? Why not try a bait cocktail for your tench session? Whether it's a bait mix for your loose feed for feeder or spodding methods or two or three different baits on as a hookbait, combining your baits can give you a real edge.
You could try a combination of worm and caster, or maggot and corn. Both combinations offer some movement and are bulky enough to deter smaller fish. Do not just consider when live and natural baits to pair, popping a fake bait with your real baits can be great, as we covered earlier under fake baits.
When pairing hookbait and loose feed, consider combos such as boilies on the top of a ground bait mix or pellet, maggot mix fished over some hemp feed. You could also use a mesh PVA bag loaded with your bait cocktail of casters, maggots and pellets or corn.
Top Baiting Tips For Tench in Spring
Before we end this baits guide, we wanted to cover some baiting methods to help you in spring.
As mentioned already, most tench rigs are feeder rigs from large maggot feeders to groundbait method feeders. No matter what you are loading up your chosen feeding with, make sure you keep recasting.
Recasting your feeder and bait will help deter smaller fish as well as distributing more bait which will, in turn, get you more bites!
For loose feed, be sure to keep your bait regular but adding it in small quantities so that you slowly build the swim. More tench will visit, and you need to ensure they stay on your spot snuffling around feeding to take your hookbait.
Keep your hookbait static on the bottom in your baited area and sure enough, if the tench are present and feeding you are in for some action.