This report from Artem of the Makeshift Lures YouTube Channel:
On Monday, I was out on a lake trying for a tench. It’s still early in tench season, so there was no one else at the lake. I found a likely-looking spot and cleared the weeds with a rake to make a fishable swim, which took nearly two hours!.
I was using a caster imitation lure that I made out of foam. First I fed the spot with homemade feed that had digestive biscuits, Weetabix, and breadcrumbs. Since I was going to match the hatch, I added some casters to the feed as well. Also during the course of the day, I was throwing a handful of casters every so often.
My setup was simple fluorocarbon attached to the main line. At the end of it with an open loop, I had 2g weight with a floating caster lure. I was casting it to the spot where my balls of feed had landed. The first bite happened at 12 o’clock.
The fish took suddenly and firmly without any line bites. There were a few runs with drag peeling from my light tackle (I was using a light spinning rod with a 3g to 12g casting weight).
After a few powerful head shakes and, of course, a dart for the weeds to hide, I landed it. I managed to catch 4 tench like this, all a little shy of the 50 cm mark. Size ranging from 45cm to 47cm.
