I have no doubt that those self-appointed guardians of the public purse at the Taxpayers’ Alliance will be pleased to hear that as an MP I get very little time to indulge myself in long-session fishing trips. The demands of both Parliament and my constituency restricts me to not much more than two or three overnighters a year. This is no problem when targeting chub, barbel and big perch from my local rivers around Reading, as a couple of hours either side of dusk is usually the best time to be on the bank. However, it presents more of a challenge when travelling to far off venues in search of a dawn feeding tench of specimen proportions.

Until recently tench have been one of my more successful species. Back in the 1970s when a 6lb tench guaranteed pride of place in the angling weeklies, I had access to several lakes, including one in Windsor Great Park where permission to fish was “questionable,” which contained such prizes. The growth of gravel pit fishing in the 1980s and 1990s saw my friends and I learn how to tackle these inland seas with mass particle baiting and efficient terminal rigs which converted a majority of bites - when they came - into fish on the bank. My personal best crept ever upwards until around five years ago I could boast the capture of three 9lb plus tench from different waters in the Thames Valley.

I’m not a dyed in the wool specimen hunter and I still enjoy catching medium size tench from smaller waters and estate lakes, usually on the float. But nowadays if I’m going to be spending any of my precious fishing time stuck behind a pair of feeder rods, I want to be in with at least a chance of a double-figure fish when that buzzer eventually bursts into life. Last spring I switched my tench campaign over to the massive Burghfield Lagoon which, although more famous for a certain common carp, also has tench of the size and weight I was seeking. The problem with Burghfield is finding the fish in a one hundred acre labyrinth of bays, spits, inlets, and causeways that make up this amazing water. Even once the tench are located there’s no guarantee that they will stay around for long and there is the ever present prospect of a productive area being sewn up by long-stay carp anglers for whom the tench hold no interest.

Although some of my friends got amongst the fish, my first year on Burghfield was a disaster. Six morning sessions produced just one line bite before my Cemex spring ticket ran out. I’m there again this year as I hate to be beaten but I felt I needed a back-up venue as well.

Things fell into place in January of all months when I met Mid-Kent Fisheries boss Chris Logsdon at the launch of the Angling Trust in London. Chris very kindly invited me down to fish his magnificent Milton Lake complex near Canterbury and I immediately kept the diary clear for a three day session over the Whitsun Bank Holiday. As usual I had begun tench fishing towards to end of April but a combination of cold nights and crystal clear water meant that the fishing was even slower than normal. However, this year I had these Kentish green monsters to look forward to and the Whitsun break couldn’t come soon enough.

Chris had even roped off an area for us on the very lake where Martin Bowler and Hugh Miles had filmed an incredible catch of tench for “Catching the Impossible” including nineteen over 8lbs topped off by a 10lb 7oz beauty. My camper van was loaded to the gunnels with tackle and bait and once my Saturday morning MP’s advice surgery was over, I picked up fishing buddies Jamie Cook and Paul Tolman and we headed round the dreaded M25 in search of some big tincas.

Arriving at the lake it was clear that there was no prospect of repeating Mr Bowler’s amazing catch as it had been fishing pretty hard for the rest of the season. With top quality anglers like Adrian Smith and Darren Goulder currently averaging one fish a day, we knew it was going to be tougher than we had hoped. That of course didn’t stop us putting in far too much bait in the first 24 hours before we calmed down and started fishing for one bite at a time. Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing in fishing but can sometimes get in the way of good angling!

As usual nothing happened during the hours of darkness but shortly after first light Jamie’s left hand rod screamed off and, following a solid fight, most of it under the rod top, I netted a personal best tench of 9lb 10oz for the young man from Reading who I taught to float fish almost 20 years ago. This beauty was caught over the back of a gravel bar at 40 yards on a mag-aligner rig and a PVA bag full of maggots. The more usual in-line heavy blockend feeders were failing to produce much action and it remained this way throughout the session for all three of us.

Our “reserved” swim was an open section of the southern shore facing out towards a series of gravel bars and humps that ran more or less parallel to the bank. The local advice was to fish at around 40 yards over the back or to the side of the second line up of bars so that’s what we did. However, with what action there was only falling to Paul’s rods on my left or Jamie’s on my right I was fast coming to the conclusion that three pairs of rods in this area was too many. The fish were only coming to the edges of our baited area and were reluctant to negotiate their way past six lines even with use of lead core or sink tubing to pin down the terminal tackle.

Whilst wading through a procession of maggot snaffling eels, Paul managed to connect with two tench, both of which came adrift. One through a dodgy hooklink and another which simply fell off on the way in. By Sunday night we had a very happy Jamie still basking in the memory of his personal best tench caught that morning, a frustrated Paul and a bemused Martin who was thinking about moving swims. In the end I decided to give it one more morning and see what occurred.

Unfortunately the wind swung round to the east which I’m told is the kiss of death in the Stour Valley and Monday morning saw only action from eels. Now I hate catching these tackle tangling slimy reptiles but with the species in a worrying decline it was, I suppose, good to find somewhere where they are still thriving. After all, eels make excellent otter food! My aversion to eels saw me switch over to three hair rigged rubber casters fished in conjunction with a small PVA bag of caster, crushed hemp and micro pellets. No eel problems for me but alas no tench either.

My change of swims that afternoon coincided with a change in the weather. The wind swung back from the west and by the evening thunderstorms were rolling down the valley. Now I wouldn’t normally recommend spodding out a bed of particles when lightening is crashing around but the light was fading fast and I wanted my new swim primed and ready for the morning feeding spell.

Tuesday morning was wet and muggy and made even better when at long last my buzzer sang its song and, after a good scrap, a pre-breakfast tench rolled over the land net-cord. At 7lbs 12oz it was not one of the monsters but still a beautiful and very satisfying fish. By now I had run out of PVA and my reluctance to either feeding the swim with live maggots or crashing around with 2oz blockends saw me switch to the more subtle 30grm Drennan cage feeders with just casters, hemp, and a few dead maggots in the groundbait. The hooklink was four inches of 8lb fluorocarbon to size 12 or 14 Drennan barbel hooks fished helicopter style between two sections of sink tubing about six inches up the line. This rig is slightly different to the normal set up as the fixed lower section of tubing prevents the hooklink slipping down and banging against the feeder or bomb thereby weakening the hook hold during the playing of a fish. Two rubber float stops at the top of the upper section of the tubing ensure that the swivel bead is held in place but still allow the hooklink to be safely discharged in the unlikely event of a break in the 10lb mainline.

The lads were also seeing action in the original swim with two fish on at the same time. Paul broke his blank with a 9lb 2oz beauty while Jamie netted a personal best male tench of 8lb 13oz. This incredible specimen was the largest male tench any of my friends had ever seen, never mind caught and gives some idea of the potential of these mid-Kent lakes.

More fish followed before it was time to head back home to Berkshire. I landed a lovely 7lb 2oz male, my second biggest, and a 6lb 14oz female. Jamie’s run of good fortune continued with his third personal best of the session, a stunning tench of 9lb 12oz. Jamie is a fine young angler and a genuine all-rounder who deserves the success he achieves. He is also a jammy little sod!

Finally, my thanks to Chris and Keith at Mid-Kent Fisheries for letting us share some of their wonderful fishing in the “Garden of England” and to Adrian, Paul F, and Darren for their invaluable advice on the bank when the going got tough.