What a difference a month makes!

At last we’re getting better weather even if it feels colder on some days.

The longer days are naturally warming the water up, the trout are having a munch up at Farmoor, the carp are moving and one of my favourite fish old Tinka Tinka (tench) are on the prowl.

Over the next two months they will be at their heaviest and some of the gravel pits in and around our district have them.

I think the best method to use for tench is scaled-down carp gear 12ft, 1 3/4-2lb TC rods with medium sized reels (no big pit reels for this game ) and ledger boilies.

My favourite flavour is Nash scopey in a mix of 10 and 15mm.

I only use two rods – one on a straight through 11/2oz inline lead, a six-inch length of 12lb braid and a hair rig with a size- eight hook with a 10mm boilie.

On the other rod it’s just the same, but with a size-six hook. On this I fish a snowman on the hair.

For the snowman you thread a 15mm on the hair first and on top you put a 10mm pop-up boilie.

This makes it sit up on the bottom like the snowman it's named after. All fish find this very hard to spit out once in the mouth.

I fish both rods on 10lb-line and electric bit alarms with bobbins for visual indication. For ground bait I use a mixture of sweetcorn, hempseed and small 4mm pellets. You can use lots of combinations, but that’s my favourite.

Always be on your guard and expect a run from a carp because they are so greedy compared with the tench.

Make sure your landing net is large enough. I use a 42in one. Always be on the look-out – if there’s no wind – for small lines of pin-prick bubbles coming up to the surface.

You can, if you want, set up a float-rod and cast a waggler over the bubbles – you could have a bite straight away.

Finally, don’t forget to use an unhooking mat.

It only takes a small piece of dead grass to pierce an eye and you have half-blinded a fish. If you haven’t got a mat, a length of bubble rap is a substitute.

My first mat was a nappy- changing thing all pink and yellow with nursery rhymes on it. I’m so glad that era has gone!