Tench
Tinca tinca
Tench (Tinca tinca) is a freshwater fish found in UK waters. Weedy, silty still waters — estate lakes, ponds, gravel pits and slow canals. Rarely far from weed. Whether you can keep one depends on local rules — check before you do.
- Max length
- 70 cm
- Max weight
- 7 kg
- Water
- Freshwater
- How often
- Common
Updated
What it looks like
A thickset, muscular fish with a deep olive-green body and remarkably small scales set in thick slime. The fins are rounded and heavy, the eye a distinctive small red-orange. A single short barbule sits at each corner of the mouth.
Males have noticeably enlarged, spoon-shaped pelvic fins — the easiest way to sex a tench in the net. Colour ranges from bronze-olive in clear water to near-black in silty ponds.
How to catch one
Bait
Sweetcorn, maggot, worm and small pellet over a bed of groundbait.
Rig
A light float rig fished over a baited patch, or a small feeder with a short hooklink.
When
First light. Tench feed hardest in the hour before and after dawn.
Where
Over silt and among weed. Look for needle-fine bubbles pricking the surface — the classic sign of feeding tench.
Season: Late spring and early summer are the classic tench months.
Easy to confuse with
crucian carp
Crucians are golden-bronze and deeper-bodied, with no barbules and no red eye.
Questions anglers ask
- Why are tench called 'the doctor fish'?
- An old angling folk belief held that other fish rubbed against tench slime to heal wounds. It is folklore, not biology.
- What is the best time of year for tench?
- May and June. Tench feed hard in the weeks around spawning, and early morning sessions are the tradition.
- How do you spot feeding tench?
- Fine pinprick bubbles in clusters, and coloured water where they have disturbed silt.
