January 2011: I managed a rather sorry tally of a single session. I should be going this week, all being well, but as far as January went, I joined Shane Calton on a trip to Toft Newton Reservoir in North Lincs, in search of its large perch. This trout water is normally fly-only, but for a few weekends each winter they open up for "all methods" days, which allows anglers the rare chance to fish for the reservoir's head of large coarse fish, which include some massive bream and roach, as well as the perch. We fished on the 23rd of January which, on the flatlands of Lincolnshire, was bitterly cold mainly due to a Northerly blasting us all day.
After a few drifts across the reservoir jigging lures, we were cold and biteless. Even my home made sloe gin only warmed us up briefly, so we anchored up in a more sheltered area and rotated between lure fishing and deadbaiting. Shane did have a run on his deadbait rig, which left teethmarks in the flank of the bait, but presumably it was a small fish, as the hook failed to connect. This was the only bite we had between us and despite trying various jigs and lures, we couldn't provoke as much as a follow. None of the 10 or so other coarse anglers caught anything by fair means (by fair, I mean with a setup that was more likely to catch a roach, bream or perch, than a trout), but I did see a couple of people land trout (which had to be returned if caught on coarse gear) in desperation, fishing with floating pellet and a bubble float!
The potential for specimen coarse fish is there at Toft Newton, but as long as they - understandably, to conserve their trout stocks - only have the odd "all methods" weekends in deepest winter, it will always be hard-going unless we have a particular mild spell. For anyone wishing to try their hand, the venue is a concrete bowl reservoir with a maximum depth of 19 feet, some bottom weed growth and a 4-foot diameter pipe running out into the middle (which many perch are said to congregate around). The fly anglers all seemed to be catching, despite the cold and the record trout is an impressive 17lb. http://www.toftnewton.com/
News of my session this week (and hopefully my first fish of 2011) to follow soon...
Showing posts with label lure fishing for perch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lure fishing for perch. Show all posts
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Monday, 4 October 2010
Zander Saves September - Perch Fishing, Zander Fishing
Well, after my last post virtually declaring September as a "lost month" as far as my fishing results were concerned, a good fish comes along and gives me a slightly more rose-tinted view of September 2010 after all!
I travelled a little farther afield than usual and endured a gruelling day fishing for perch, with very disappointing results. The weather was overcast all day, the river was fairly clear and to be honest, I considered the conditions to be perfect for perch fishing. However, the closest I came to catching a big perch was a missed take on a spinner early on, which felt like a perch and also felt heavy. Then an hour later I was lure fishing in a shallow, gravelly run when I got an amazing follow. The bow-wave created was huge! It zig-zagged behind my lure and took one final swipe, but missed. I'm pretty sure I saw the mouth of a perch as it made that final grab and I'm also sure that a pike would have had the small lure well down its throat long before that anyway!
After a few hours of throwing lures around and failing to catch even a micro-perch, I settled on a peg to bait fish. Several hours passed and the best perch I had was around 4oz, on maggot; the best fish I had was a chub of around a pound, on lobworm.
Still, I had also caught a few roach around 3oz, which I'd killed to use as baits as the light began to drop. The other rods I had in the van were set up for some zander fishing, so I rigged up some of these fresh baits and sat back not expecting too much. My only run of the evening resulted in this 8lb 11oz zander:
It's by no means the largest zander in the world, but it's my biggest for a few seasons and as you'll see by reading my article "My Love Affair with Zander", I'm quite attached to the species, despite living a good 2 hours drive from most of the best zander fishing in the Country and blanking on far more sessions than I catch on. So, this fish is very, very welcome and has made me a happy man.
It was interesting photographing this fish and just as the first shot was taken, the zander kicked and ...well see below for yourself! It was such a quality, one-off photograph that I thought it deserved a caption and deserved to be put up on here. Below are the best two captions so far, but if you have any better ones, post them in the comments box and I might even add the best ones to the photo and post them on here...
I travelled a little farther afield than usual and endured a gruelling day fishing for perch, with very disappointing results. The weather was overcast all day, the river was fairly clear and to be honest, I considered the conditions to be perfect for perch fishing. However, the closest I came to catching a big perch was a missed take on a spinner early on, which felt like a perch and also felt heavy. Then an hour later I was lure fishing in a shallow, gravelly run when I got an amazing follow. The bow-wave created was huge! It zig-zagged behind my lure and took one final swipe, but missed. I'm pretty sure I saw the mouth of a perch as it made that final grab and I'm also sure that a pike would have had the small lure well down its throat long before that anyway!
After a few hours of throwing lures around and failing to catch even a micro-perch, I settled on a peg to bait fish. Several hours passed and the best perch I had was around 4oz, on maggot; the best fish I had was a chub of around a pound, on lobworm.
Still, I had also caught a few roach around 3oz, which I'd killed to use as baits as the light began to drop. The other rods I had in the van were set up for some zander fishing, so I rigged up some of these fresh baits and sat back not expecting too much. My only run of the evening resulted in this 8lb 11oz zander:
It's by no means the largest zander in the world, but it's my biggest for a few seasons and as you'll see by reading my article "My Love Affair with Zander", I'm quite attached to the species, despite living a good 2 hours drive from most of the best zander fishing in the Country and blanking on far more sessions than I catch on. So, this fish is very, very welcome and has made me a happy man.
It was interesting photographing this fish and just as the first shot was taken, the zander kicked and ...well see below for yourself! It was such a quality, one-off photograph that I thought it deserved a caption and deserved to be put up on here. Below are the best two captions so far, but if you have any better ones, post them in the comments box and I might even add the best ones to the photo and post them on here...
Plus, this photo really got me thinking about just how big the mouth of a zander gets when it flares its gills. I tend to use small baits when zander fishing, but its mouth was twice the size of mine!
Friday, 3 September 2010
Late August Capture Update, New Angling Star Article & New Website Article
Well, after a couple of weeks off - first being away on holiday (rarely, without any tackle!), then attending the Leeds Festival for the August bank holiday weekend - I have done very little fishing of late. However, during the week before I went on holiday, I managed a couple of sessions which saw me bank a few good fish...
Firstly, I targetted barbel and although I managed to lose two fish in a snag, once I'd switched to using "hit and hold" tactics with a single rod, I managed to extract this excellent 9lb 5oz barbel. Check out the way its tail fin is so long that it arcs over at the top, like the dorsal fin of an Orca Whale!
The following evening I had a couple of hours to lure fish for perch - just before sunset - and although conditions were difficult, I did land a few good fish in the shape of a 2lb 12oz perch, a 2lb 5oz perch and - just as I thought I'd spooked the remainder of the fish in the swim - my first 3lb+ perch of the season at 3lb 1oz...
Perch shown in capture order:
Angling Star & Just-Fish.co.uk update
I have a new, double-page Barbel feature in the current August/September issue of the Angling Star. If you want to check it out but don't have a retailer local to you, send me a message and I may be able to get a copy to you. Alternatively, you can order back issues and also set up a quarterly or annual subscription to the magazine at the following link: Order Angling Star Subscriptions & Back Issues
Meanwhile, I've uploaded a new article to my main website, www.just-fish.co.uk. It's got the stupid title of "Feeling Flexible" and it can be viewed from the following link: http://www.just-fish.co.uk/fishing-articles/
This article originally featured in Angling Star magazine back in February of this year.
More sessions planned soon, so stay tuned for the results!
Firstly, I targetted barbel and although I managed to lose two fish in a snag, once I'd switched to using "hit and hold" tactics with a single rod, I managed to extract this excellent 9lb 5oz barbel. Check out the way its tail fin is so long that it arcs over at the top, like the dorsal fin of an Orca Whale!
The following evening I had a couple of hours to lure fish for perch - just before sunset - and although conditions were difficult, I did land a few good fish in the shape of a 2lb 12oz perch, a 2lb 5oz perch and - just as I thought I'd spooked the remainder of the fish in the swim - my first 3lb+ perch of the season at 3lb 1oz...
Perch shown in capture order:
2lb 12oz
2lb 5oz
3lb 1oz
Angling Star & Just-Fish.co.uk update
I have a new, double-page Barbel feature in the current August/September issue of the Angling Star. If you want to check it out but don't have a retailer local to you, send me a message and I may be able to get a copy to you. Alternatively, you can order back issues and also set up a quarterly or annual subscription to the magazine at the following link: Order Angling Star Subscriptions & Back Issues
Meanwhile, I've uploaded a new article to my main website, www.just-fish.co.uk. It's got the stupid title of "Feeling Flexible" and it can be viewed from the following link: http://www.just-fish.co.uk/fishing-articles/
This article originally featured in Angling Star magazine back in February of this year.
More sessions planned soon, so stay tuned for the results!
Friday, 30 July 2010
Near-3lb River Perch on the Fly!
After a few Summers of catching a decent number of 2lb+ perch on lures I decided it was time for a slightly different kind of challenge. I would still visit my favourite Summer swims which took many blank sessions to find, but now I know where the perch are at this time of year they've been very reliable and with only a few repeat captures. The main difference is that instead of conventional lure fishing (which I'm fairly proficient at), I would try for them with a discipline which I'm far more clumsy and out of practice with; fly fishing.
I asked my good friend and fly fishing instructor, Kevin Miles, to tie me up some flies replicating perch fry, after seeing a good perch spit one out in my landing net a few weeks ago. The resulting flies - tied onto size 2 Nash Fang hooks - were really good too! I should have really taken some photos of them before I started destroying them by hurling them into undergrowth and such like!
I was using my Fox Predator XS fly rod, which I bought when it was on offer a couple of years ago and it's been gathering dust since, just begging for me to get around to using it. To this I attached a Greys GRXi large-arbour fly reel loaded with clear sinking line. I then used a "Rio Toothy Critter" leader, which has a coated wire trace section at the tippet.
Anyway, I had about an hour of fluff-chucking and had just a single take, but it was from a big perch - my biggest of 2010 so far in fact - 2lb 15oz of fry-eating, fly-crunching, prime Summer stripey!
I asked my good friend and fly fishing instructor, Kevin Miles, to tie me up some flies replicating perch fry, after seeing a good perch spit one out in my landing net a few weeks ago. The resulting flies - tied onto size 2 Nash Fang hooks - were really good too! I should have really taken some photos of them before I started destroying them by hurling them into undergrowth and such like!
I was using my Fox Predator XS fly rod, which I bought when it was on offer a couple of years ago and it's been gathering dust since, just begging for me to get around to using it. To this I attached a Greys GRXi large-arbour fly reel loaded with clear sinking line. I then used a "Rio Toothy Critter" leader, which has a coated wire trace section at the tippet.
Anyway, I had about an hour of fluff-chucking and had just a single take, but it was from a big perch - my biggest of 2010 so far in fact - 2lb 15oz of fry-eating, fly-crunching, prime Summer stripey!
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