pike and perch.co.uk

Finally the off season lows are on their way out, its time to get excited and make some preparations for the new season!   The river kit gets a dusting down and the tackle box gets prepared for roaming again.  I simply love this time of year, its light until late, warm enough to travel lightly and cover some serious mileage on the river.  

After catching some nice chub at the end of last season i really am looking forward to targetting them for a while this season.  And of course i’ll out doing plenty of perch fishing, some pike fishing and not forgetting a few socials on the hunt for some nice carp.  Oh and hopefully i may even be able to catch a few river carp along the way!  I saw a nice 20+ cruising along in the sunshine two weeks ago and its given me the itch. 

I’ll be back to post again on the evening of the 16th to let you know how i get on!  Tight lines to all and may the 2010/11 season be a great one! 

Atlast it seems that the cold long winter is behind us and the weather is finally on the up!  The last month has been hard since the river season ended and my time was to be spent on nearby lakes whilst i wait for the return of the river.  This is without a doubt my hardest time of year, especially when travelling by the river each day and it starts to look more full of life as each day passes.  Only this saturday did i see a near 20lb carp cruise on past me during a quick stroll along the banks.  So frustrating!

So what has happened since my last post fishing wise, to be honest not a great deal except for the fact that i managed 3 4lb + chub.  The last being a PB from the river at 4lb 9oz on the last day of the season which was a great result considering there was work on the river that weekend and water levels were 3 feet down from the usual.  What made it even better was that the fish took a liking to my new homemade cheese paste!  I’ll definately be trying that again when the season re-opens.  The other two were taken on pop-ups whilst trying to tempt the odd carp!

Perch wise i’ve been trying a new pit to see what the numbers are like within.  I have managed to do a few hours over the last couple of evenings so far, and last night i finally managed to find one.   Not a biggie but at a pound and a half and coloured the way he was i was delighted.  The little spro ultralight rod really does come in to its own with the perch!   The lure that tricked this little fella was a little Salmo and i’ll be trying it out again down there very soon.   As ever last light was the key again…!   Last night i was losing the light very quickly and in the end i decided to stick it out for ten minutes more in to darkness and it thankfully paid off.   (Just be prepared a head torch is a must for unhooking at night)

I’ll try to update the site again should anything else come my way on this spring/summer evening trips! 

Tight lines and best luck to all

Sunday just gone a change from the norm was in order and 4 weeks ago i decided it was time to try lure from a boat so booked up at Blenheim Palace.  The fishfinder was ordered and a few new lures in the vain hope that we could hit into some of the gems of the Palace lake.  The alarm was set for 4am and i was looking forward to what would hopefully be a great day afloat.

I picked up Jon my fishing bud at 5am and set off on the drive to Oxford.  A short and enthusiastic 2 hours later and we drove through the gates to be greeted by our first view of the lake.  The only word i can think to describe this place is ‘wow’.

The boat was loaded and off we went in search of some action!  The fishfinder ( a garmin 140 ) was mounted so we could quickly gauge the depth and the first lure was cast as the sun broke onto the surface from behind the bank hugging tree line.  Wow this place was stunning!

With temperatures around -2 on the journey over and with ice in the top end of the lake we knew it wouldn’t be the easiest of days, and after two hours of plugging we hadnt seen much at all.  The fishfinder led us to some deep spots of 14-15′ at the dam end and had shown signs of fish below the surface but no matter how many variations of lures we had tried nothing was showing a liking to the bait.  We decided to head up towards the other end to see if our fortunes would change.

We rowed for around 15-20 minutes keeping an eye on the depth and decided to work our way along the Palace bank.  Again nothing was obliging and despite there being 7 other boats out we were yet to see any fish taken.

We turned the corner towards the bridge and again were greeted by another stunning view, this lake was extremely pleasing to the eye!  It was just a shame it wasn’t to be an overly productive day.  We dropped the anchor around 10-15m from the bridge and set about our luring regime again.  After two casts of the Spro Ultralight rod ‘bang’… the 2.5″ chartreuse Kopyto had done the business - i was in!  Bang bang bang on the tip and i thought i’d been lucky and hit into a stripey (perch).  Then the fish picked up speed and the banging stopped, the fish rose up and a pike was in the net!  I didn’t bother weighing the little chap but was more than chuffed at landing my first Blenheim fish!  We plugged away in the area for a further 30-45 mins but none of his friends were willing to give chase.

After our success at the bridge we tried various other areas but unfortunately were not to be blessed with anymore fish.  Although this little chap (below) did stop by to say hello, and i have to say i was equally pleased to get such a good picture of a kingfisher as normally when the camera is out they elude me.

All in all it was a great day afloat, the fishfinder worked well and so did the camera.  Hopefully next time and there will definately be a next time there will be more action to the rods.  It wasn’t that we hadn’t tried our damdest we slung everything into the water, but i think with mixed weather on the lead up to our visit and the freezing temps the fish were never going to be over active.  But hey ho that’s fishing.  Fingers crossed we will get back there when the new season opens, and i’ll be sure to post another report and more pictures.

Thanks for stopping by.
Mark

Hopefully someone can help me!  I’m desperately looking for some of my favourite floats as i’m down to my last one… if anyone has any please let me know!  Or alternatively if you know anywhere i can get some or something similar please send me a mail at pikeandperch@gmail.com

Thanks,
Mark

Well i’ve got to admit i’ve been quiet for a while due to doing a bit of carp fishing and working silly hours! Only a few more weeks of madness at work and hopefully i’ll be back on the banks each weekend.  With the onset of the colder weather approaching i cannot wait for the chance to get out at 5am at the weekend and try to find some pike, perch and the odd chub.

I will be posting again hopefully next weekend as fingers crossed that will be my one off!   I hope everyone is catching well and finding those biggies - wherever they may be hiding!

Tight lines
Mark

Its been a while since i’ve posted so i thought i’d post up a little update.  I’ve been hard at work finishing my pond off which is literally done now.  So hopefully back on the fishing as soon as possible!  If all goes to plan another night will be spent on the river this weekend to see if life is returning to a very low looking river.  Not much fish movement to report at all and captures… well even less so!

I’ll hopefully be posting up on here sunday of some marvelous captures, well probably not to be honest but i’m staying optimistic just in case something special comes my way!  If not i think it may be time to try somewhere else for a while until we have some real amount of rain to rejuvenate a somewhat silent river that is really struggling to produce at the moment.  Fingers crossed for the weeks to come!

I went out 4:30am saturday to try my luck on the river.  On my arrival it looked low and not exactly full of life, i chucked out a handful of maggots and a few silver fish had a nibble.   So on went a worm to trot down the far margin to see if anything good was out there.   On the forth or fifth trot i managed a nice chub to about a pound, and shortly after another followed suit and then all went dead.  Not even the maggots were catching.  So i thought it about time a deadbait went out to a very tasty looking spot. 

An hour later and i was on the move as it just looked dead where i was, barely any movement and i was questioning myself as to whether or not i was in the right spot.  I went down river about 80-100 metres where i’d seen quite a few tiddlers jumping clear of the water.  Out went two deads but again to no avail.  They were cast in different locations throughout the morning but i couldn’t buy a bite!   So unfortunately i went home later that day totally deflated.

Not to worry too much though as i went out last night and managed a jack on the first cast of a dead on ‘the’ lake, shortly after my buddy managed a perch of about a pound and then i bagged another pike around 6-7lb.  Not bad considering we’d only been there for 3 hours in the evening and the day before i’d wasted about 8 hours chasing not very much on the river.  Fingers crossed we’ll get some decent rain soon and bring the river back to life.  Until then i think i’ll stay on the lakes!  Not many stripeys were about but it was very windy down there so maybe that is something to watch out on future trips… never thought to much about the location of stripeys when there is strong winds, but thats twice its happened now!

Hmm!   

I nearly forgot and then checked the dates of the first post and Pike and Perch is 1 year old today!

Thanks to everyone for popping in and dropping by on the forum.  Hopefully we can build on this and make it even better by the site’s next birthday.

Tight lines to all!

Mark

Hi all,

Today i went for a different approach and thought i’d try dropshotting for the Perch.  I went to a large lake near where i live armed with my spinning rod 5-20g with 15lb braid loaded onto a Shimano Sedona 750.  This outfit is a total joy to use when targetting Perch and seemed perfect for dropshotting.

New dropshot hooks are currently on order so i opted for some green size 4 fly hooks that i have and they seemed to stick out perfectly when mounted on 12lb grand max.  I rigged it so the lure was about a foot from the bottom and set about trying to christen the new technique and get to grips with how effective it could be.

It didn’t take too long to work either i think on about my fifth cast i was into a nice perch of around a pound!  A great way to start on a new way of fishing!!! Luckily i managed another around 15 minutes later and i was set on always taking a rod rigged up for dropshotting on my luring trips.

I’m not so sure the hooks i used stood up enough but for the trial it seemed sufficient enough, i cannot wait to get out more on this method and see if it out fishes the usual spinning and jigging!  Time will tell!

And hey if you haven’t given it a go yet i highly advise you try it out!