Over the next couple of weeks, tench will be at their biggest weight and my favourite approach for targeting them has to be with maggots, and plenty of them.

On many venues, it is necessary to fish further out than what you could reach with the float, so I turn to a Bolt Rig Feeder. This allows me to accurately fish to small gaps in the weed at range.

Tench are very inquisitive and like to investigate any disturbances, so regular recasting is essential, I like to do this every 45 minutes.

To ensure there is a slow, constant trickle of grubs coming out of the feeder, I tape up the body of the feeder with electrical tape, ensuring I leave exit holes at either end. This allows the maggots to exit the feeder at a much slower rate with one or two exiting the feeder at a time. This I believe in many cases attracts a shoal of silverfish to gather around the feeder, picking off the maggots one by one. This, in turn, will draw the attention of any tench, and when they approach they see my artificial maggots laying on the bottom, they pick them up and it’s fish on.

If I had not taped the feeder up and the maggots were allowed to escape the feeder at a much faster rate, I would be left with just my hookbait after a much shorter period of time, greatly reducing the chance of a take.