Tench

What you're looking at

The tench (Tinca tinca) is a classically-shaped coarse fish — thick-set, muscular, covered in tiny dark scales, with deep olive-bronze colouring and rounded paddle-like fins. A summer dawn favourite for generations of UK anglers.

Key features

• Body: Thick, stocky, slimy skin with very small embedded scales — feels velvety, not scaly.
• Colour: Dark olive-green back, bronze-gold flanks, yellow-cream belly. Colour darkens in clear water, lightens on coloured days.
• Fins: All fins are rounded with thick, fleshy rays — "paddles" rather than the spiky/concave fins of perch or pike.
• Eyes: Small and bright red-orange.
• Barbules: One short barbule at each corner of the mouth.
• Size: 1–3 kg average; specimens are 4 kg+; UK record over 6 kg.

Golden tench

An ornamental variant with a bright golden-yellow body — same species, occasionally stocked into specimen waters as a draw fish.

Where to find them

Stillwaters and slow rivers with weed, lily pads, and silty bottoms. Tench prefer warm water, so the classic UK season is May to early September, with dawn and dusk the prime windows. Pin-prick bubbles rising in shallow margins are the giveaway sign of feeding tench.