May all your catches be great ones! 

Thanks for stopping by!  

If it doesn’t look great i may have to resort to trying to catch some perch instead… hmmm!  I cannot wait, each day at the moment i am constantly checking the weather to see how its changing.  As for now its flippin cold but that sure as hell won’t stop me!  So far for the weekend its looking like a zero degrees day time temperature for both days although i’m sure a perch in the net will warm me up!  

I’ll let you know how it goes!   Keep check on how i get on : www.perchforum.co.uk

Sunday was lure building day, i’ve been trying my hand at making some wooden Jerkbaits.  And to be honest i’m quite impressed with what i have managed to produce out of old bits of wood in the garage!  After several coats of paint to seal them up i managed to have a quick test run in the local river to see how they move on the retrieve. Blimey i even amazed myself, on casting it just settled in the flow and just the top was above the water line.  On making small jerks with the rod the lure swung to the right and then to the left, it looked spot on.  I really cannot explain how chuffed i was with the results, it darting from left to right excellently.   My epoxy resin should turn up towards the end of the week ( Envirotex Lite ) and then i can seal them properly and give them a go!  I’ll let you know how i get on!  I cannot wait to catch my first pike on one of these… i think its the whole ‘i made it myself’ to this newly discovered art forum!

I’ll post pictures soon of the finished product!

Come on in and have your say!  Signing up only takes a minute and all anglers are welcome!

Thanks for dropping in! 
Mark

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Thanks,
Mark

On arrival at 3pm the jacks were striking a little further upstream so i decided to setup next to some lillypads and hope for the best a little bit downstream of the resident pike.   First up i thought i’d catch myself a few baits and then try those on one rod and a nice fat juicy lob on the other.   The small roach were most obliging and within 15 minutes i had a good 6/7 baits in the bucket.   I rigged up with my normal float paternoster setup and sat back with fingers crossed.  The float was bobbing away with some attention and after 20 minutes my first perch was bagged.  Just over a pound and i was satisfied.  I recast another bait to the same spot and the attention started after 5 or 6 minutes.  This time not resulting in much, so i left it alone and cast a cut lobworm 15 yards upstream under a bobber float.  Within minutes the first perch was on and quickly netted.   This time at around half a pound he had put up a good scrap.  The livebait still un-touched.  Out went another worm and after a further ten minutes off it ran again, again around half a pound.  I decided to cast the livebait just past this spot incase a biggie was nearby and attracted to the feeding smaller perch.   The worm went back out 5 yards to the left.

Bang!  The float bolted under and at first felt very good with the initial and a very angry pounder was landed.  This followed over the next hour by another 3 perch between half a pound and a pound.   Light was fading fast and i had around 30 minutes remaining.  Then wallop the float flew under and held tight as a struck.  This time it felt really special, the worm was taken and something nice was on the end of my line.  At first it banged and knocked and felt perchy but then it just held the bottom… five minutes later and i still had no idea what was on the end, i lowered the net and was graced with my first ever eel weighing in at just under 3lb.  Initially i was gutted as i thought it had been a large perch bite but this kind of made up for it as it was the first eel i had ever caught. 

All in all not a bad day at all.   7 Perch and a new PB - happy days!

Saturday arrived and i was back on the river 13 hours after my last fish.  This time a frost had hit hard and the temperature overnight had plummeted to around 2 degrees.  The river looked dead.  I tried all i could, had one rod out for the pike and one for the perch.  The next 6 hours passed without a touch!  Had the weather really killed it that much.  It certainly looked that way.  I tried various areas but no predators wanted to know.  Oh well onwards and upwards next weekend if its real cold i will have to go for a wander and see if i can find them.  

The alarm clock beeped away at 6am and there i was alone on a secluded back stream of the river by 6:30 i had high hopes for the morning.  The part i had chosen had lovely deep undercut banks and was a small fish holding area.  Livebaits were coming thick and fast and i thought this day was looking good.  I tackled up the perch rod with a float fished paternostered live bait around 3″ long, with high hopes that Mr Perch would soon arrive for his breakfast.  I also opted to put out a pike rod as this area normally produces a good few pike.  I’d had them previously here up to around 9-10lb.  On a normal morning here i’d have seen many pike striking in the early hours but this time i had seen none - weird!  After 2 hours i decided it just wasn’t happening here today.  I had positioned the perch rod in favoured spots but produced nout.  It was time to move. 

I up’d rods and went for a look at other areas of the river.  I found a nice spot with a lot of cover from reeds and lilly pads, it wasn’t an easy place to fish but looked good for a perch bite.   Out went the float paternoster rod just off the lilly pads in a nice area of shade.  And the other rod i positioned about 10 yards upstream tight to the bank.  I began to question myself after 30 minutes if it just wasn’t to be today, but low and behold the float started to bob… and then it was off i struck as soon as the float went for a swim and i was in.  A few minutes later a nice stripey as in the net!  At 1lb 10oz it sure wasn’t the biggest but boy was i glad to see it.  After thinking it wasn’t going to happen i was very happy i’d decided to move. 

So guess where i’m heading this weekend!  Got to see if there are many more Perch up in that area.  It should be a good spot after the heavy rain from yesterday as its sheltered and off from the main flow.   3 days of work to go!  I just hope the stripeys are hungry!

If not i guess its time to sit back and read Perch - Contemporary Days and Ways that turned up in the post earlier this week!  Seems like a good read so far and makes the daily commute to work a little easier!