pike and perch.co.uk

I had a day out planned for Monday to target the perch at a local pit i’ve not visited for 3 months. I’ve had them to just under 3lb from this lake it the past and thought it looked perfect with the weather forecast. On arrival to my dissapointment the water level had dropped 3 feet and the wind was gusting to 20mph. Not ideal but still worth a shot.

To cut a long story short I gave it a couple of hours of baiting and wandering from spot to spot but saw no signs and had no bites to signal interest. By 10am i knew it wasn’t happening, it was the kind of time when you sit there and say to yourself its not going to happen so move. So i decided to try a small stream where i’ve seen some good fish in the past.

Blimey what a difference it was beaming with life! Within the next 4 hours i had caught 4 chub and 8 perch no monsters but i was a very happy man indeed i’ll definately be back there soon to have another bash. I’ve seen chub there before to approx 6lb and perch to at least three. So until the lake improves i think i’ll be spending some more time along this stretch. Nothing like fishing the tiniest of streams and watching monsters linger on through the swim checking out your bait right in front of you. Love it!

Good luck all!

Ok I did manage a day and a bit of fishing on the lake mentioned before to see what i could catch.  I went armed with an arsenal of red maggots hoping for a perch, but basically to get a rough idea of stock within the lake.

I must have gone through around 40 roach on good friday, amongst the odd gudgeon, bleak and dace… and then taaa daaa a perch took a single red maggot!  Ok he was only about 4 inches but atleast now i know that there is atleast one Perch in there!  The problem is how the hell do i find them in 15 plus acres of water… i suppose follow the bait fish and try the overhangs and undercuts! ….I cannot wait.   It may be a long slog but fingers crossed there could be a gem in there somewhere.

I had a walk round on Sunday also, to get ideas of where to fish and did fortunately see a few perch chasing the smaller fish.  Albeit they only looked around .5 to 1lb but the signs are there for me to focus my available time on the place!  Please oh please let this lake hold some magical untouched perch!  

This is the sort of lake that books are written about, away from the crowds little known about and only the very odd fisherman frequents it’s banks…!  

Hmmm.

This Friday afternoon i decided to go armed with some lobs and catch myself a few small livebaits and have another go at the same stretch that produced last weekend. 

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.