See, I can still catch perch!

Sorry everyone, this post is almost 2 months late!  I started typing it shortly after the session and then never got the time to finish it!  So for now, here's a slightly rushed post, but I've a fair bit of fishing planned in the near future so expect a flurry of activity on here very soon!

A couple of weeks after the rivers closed I headed to local fishery, Tibshelf Ponds, to target the resident perch which are numerous (It used to be my local water and I would catch several every time I fished there as a child), but I had an incling that there were some really large ones there to be caught too.

I set up with a combination of a swimfeeder rod (switching between a groundbait feeder & maggot feeder) and a heavy pole float fished on a new bolognese rod that I'd bought and was keen to try out.  Bolognese rods have never really taken off in the UK, they are designed to fish the deep canals & slow rivers of mainland Europe, and they're basically a telescopic whip (mine's 6 metres long) with a reel seat and a rod ring on every section.  They're not very good for casting, but I bought mine to allow me to fish very light with the sensitivity and precision of a pole, but with the playing abilities of a rod and reel, especially beneficial when a large fish is hooked.  In reality, it's not quite as good as a pole or rod & reel, but I don't like relying on a piece of elastic to "play" my fish for me, so it's a useable substitute for a pole that caters to my own desires and stupid prejudices!

Over the course of the day I landed most of my perch on the float and was amazed at the fights on the bolognese.  Even modest 6oz fish would feel like 1lb+ brutes as they fought against the huge rod; it made catching small perch so much more fun and then when a 1lb 3oz fish finally took a liking to my worms, it gave me a proper tussle!

The bites dried up around the middle part of the day, as they so often do with perch, but eventually my air-injected lobworm started receiving some serious fishy attention.  I missed bite after bite - probably small perch - whether I struck immediately or let the run develop made no difference, I just couldn't connect!  Then I managed to connect with the next three consecutive bites!  The first fish kept me guessing all the way to the net.  It was fighting hard but didn't feel like a perch and I couldn't decide between perch, tench or carp.  A flash of green gave me a moment of hope, but as it surfaced properly a rubbery yellow mouth gave it away; it was a tench.  Next cast I struck at a very perch-like sharp, stuttering run, which turned into a head-thrashing, hectic, perch-like fight.  After a close encounter with some submerged Norfolk reeds a perch looking easily 2lbs graced the net.  Unfortunately, this pot-bellied, thuggish-looking perch (check out its protruding bottom lip!) had recently spawned, so that pot-belly was empty and she weighed 2 ounces shy of 2lbs, making it my biggest bait-caught perch to date (for some reason, all my biggies take lures!) and a personal best for that water. 

Darkness was fast approaching and the fish were hard on the feed, so I quickly re-cast.  About 10 minutes later I got another run which turned out to be yet another species, a chub of around 3lb.  It wasn't what I came for but it was a lovely fish and would be one of the fish I used to catch in my teens, which were stocked at about 4oz, 15 or so years ago.  I still have photos of my beaming face behind a tiny chub at Tibby ponds!

Anyway, here is the photo of the perch.  A bit more writing to follow soon I promise!

The Kennet (and my last trip of the river season 2009/10)

As day was breaking I arrived at the Reading & District AA car park and was sorting through my worms as Will pulled up. Will not only has a string of massive perch to his name, he is also the angling development officer for Reading, a bailiff and coach for RDAA and is a founding member of a small specimen group based around Reading called SAS Angling! Over the past year, you may have also seen him feature in one or two of Ian Welch's articles in Anglers Mail too...  Right from the off I got on really well with Will, who's a genuine, amiable chap, not to mention knowledgeable!
 My first glimpses of the Kennet gave me instant optimism and I couldn't wait to get set-up.  It was slightly couloured and with plenty of perchy features.   We set up in a shady area of overhanging near-bank trees, which provided the margins with some shade as the sun rose behind us. The roots were quite terrifying to offer a bait towards, but they were blatant perch (and chub!) holding features. 

Before long, Will was getting bites which he was suspicious of.  Eventually after an aggressive tap on the rod tip, he found the culprit to be a signal crayfish, which apparently plague the Kennet (and many Southern rivers), but the species was completely new to me.  Obviously I've read and heard about them, but never actually seen a live one.  They are aggressive wee beasties with pretty formidable claws loaded with sensory hairs, which allow them to accurately grab at prey in extremely low light levels, while small barbs on the claws help them cling on to their prey once captured.  These crayfish are far larger than I expected and besides the fungus they carry (detrimental to our native white-claws), it's easy to see how these creatures have just taken over in so many rivers.  The signal was duly despatched and removed from the vicinity of the river, and so were the others which followed.  It didn't take too long until I'd caught one myself, which gave me a savage take!  Have a look for yourself at these close-ups I took, paying special attention to the size of the cray in comparison to Will's hand!

Eventually Will got a bite which was definitely not a crayfish, but within seconds his rig had been pulled into the tangled mass of tree roots and the fish was lost.  Apart from crayfish, the swims went dead and we decided upon a move onto the nearby Kennet & Avon canal, to pass the early afternoon before returning to these tree-lined swims later on.  It was quite a hike with all the tackle, but after about 20 minutes walking we ended up at a "Perch paradise"!  This place was straight out of the textbook; if someone sketched an example swim with features to look for, this place would have more features!  On the near-bank there was a mixture of overhanging bushes, trees & brambles and moorings; on the far bank there were these, plus a resident barge; downstream the water shallowed and upstream a small stream flowed in. 

The banks were high and steep and the water was really clear, so we set up well-back from the water and crept up to our pegs to cast.  After the slow morning (and previous day!), seeing this place was an inspiration and I began to get quite excited at the prospect of what perch lurked within this stretch.  Will also said he had a good feeling about the place, so we decided to stay put for the rest of the day and see what happened.  Will had a bush in front of him, growing well out into the water and sheltering around this were thousands of minute, freshly hatched fry.  Something had been spawning recently, but we couldn't tell exactly what species they were.  Could they possibly be perch fry, meaning any perch we caught would be a fair bit leaner and lighter?

I was first to get a bite here, as the bobbin on my right-hand rod jerked and lifted a few times promisingly.  On this rod I'd cast an air-injected lobworm fished in conjunction with a maggot feeder, under the barge on the far bank.  The bite never progressed into a proper run, so I twitched the bait back a few inches towards me.  A few minutes later the same bait was taken again, but I failed to connect with the culprit.  We managed to catch a single gudgeon, which we hoped would be enough to tempt one of the large fish - which was no doubt lurking beneath the barge - out of its lair for an easy meal.  It wasn't to be though, and as it happened we probably caught this gudgeon half an hour too early.  As the light began to disappear, the perch finally came out to play, but by this time the gudgeon had seen better days.  Five or six sprays of fry from all around our swims signalled that the perch were actively chasing the fry we'd spotted earlier.  They had been there all along!  How big perch manage to keep a check on there natural urges for hours until the time is just right (it had been overcast for most of the afternoon, yet still they waited for dusk!), I'll never know.  All of a sudden our worms started attracting attention.  First, Will hooked into his first positive bite from the peg and landed a fish of just below a pound.  We knew there were larger ones lurking and Will's next bite turned up a completely different beast.  This one was fighting hard, trying its best to snag Will's line on one of the many snags/sanctuaries (depending on the angler/fish viewpoint!).  Luckily we both had extending landing net handles and I managed to coax this fat, round perch off the overhanging grass it had snagged in, and into the net.

Finally, a very good perch lay subdued in front of us.  How good exactly we shall never know; we both thought it looked over 3lb and a couple of days later, Will's scales were shown to be weighing 7oz light at 3lb.  On the day they weighed this fish at 2lb 13oz and I think we could conservatively call it 3lb.  Here's the photo, what a beauty!...

There was still enough time for me to have what seemed to be a promising run on the near-margin rod, but it turned out to be very violent but too quick for me to strike.  I stood poised, waiting for it to go again, but unfortunately it didn't.  We fished on slightly into dark, but I managed to end the second river season in a row with a blank session!

Will is soon to be offering guided perch trips on the Kennet and K & A canal, which I'd recommend if you want to be in with a chance of latching into a real beast of a stripey.  With his vast knowledge of this species in particular, you're bound to learn some key tactics to help you in the future too.  When his guiding is in operation, I'll post more details on here but meanwhile if you'd like to arrange a day fishing with Will, email me and I'll put him in touch with you.