pike and perch.co.uk

I’ll will send another update soon as to state of the medway in the upper reaches and hopefully soon the new christmas lures can be christened!

Good luck to all and I hope you all have a great 2010!

Ok back i went to the same location, it wasn’t quite as productive as the first session as it was a lot windier but we still managed around 15-20 perch.  Biggest again just below a pound… i’m sure there are bigger in there after seeing an easy 2 pounder last autumn.  Hopefully i will be back down there tomorrow to see whats about and try another very perchy area of the lake.  Fingers crossed – and whatever happens i cannot wait for the 16th to come around.  I’m counting the days now.  The new perch rods have arrived and the worms are on order to arrive Friday so i can get out and prebait a few chosen swims on my favourite section of river.

Good luck to any readers who like myself will be aiming for stripeys on the opening day!

Damn it seems like ages, but for the next three days i will be Perch fishing the Medway!  Well half a day each from tomorrow through till Sunday.  I love the night before, all the tackle gets a fresh sort through and the rods get prepared.  Man what a great feeling! 

I’ll be sure to try and post the results of each day either on here or the forum www.perchforum.co.uk

Has anyone else been on the bank since the new year and caught any nice Pike, Perch or Chub? If so join up to the forum and let us know – what when and where you’ve caught and discuss techniques and baits etc.  It’ll be good to have you on board! 

Tight lines for 2009
Mark 

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.  

Well i have no idea what went wrong… the pike weren’t about feeding like normal, the perch were not up for it and even the silver fish had legged it!  What a day.  The river was dull with a slow flow to it, the weather looked good but the fishing wasn’t to be that great!  Tried different stretches down the medway and just before packing up managed a Perch just under 2lb – phew i had survived what i was certain of being a blank session.   I really thought the conditions looked good, but thats fishing i guess.  If it was always easy i suppose i’d get bored of it.  Hopefully this weekend after a long week at work the river will be full of life again and those preds will be after some of my baited rigs!

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!

Well this saturday it was 1 degree on the car thermo when i arrived at the river!  It looked full of life but the big pike weren’t about to play. 

Managed two jacks and a cracking perch at 2lb 12oz’s.  That made the session for me!  I love nothing more than hooking in to a specimen sized perch.  Fingers crossed there will be more to come.  Would still love to crack the 4lb barrier from the Medway… one day soon hopefully!  Its getting closer with reports of other large one’s coming out in recent days. 

I’ll keep you posted.