28th January Perching and a good result!

A girl I know said the last time she had sex, it was like the men’s Olympic 100 meter final. I laughed, “Over in 9.5 seconds?” “No,” she said, “Eight black men and a gun.”

Not PC I know!

The month is not just passing by but has practically gone and the fishing has been disappointing. Rain, snow then more rain has seen the rivers rise yet again. I’m unsure whether I’ve ever seen a worst month for fishing the rivers, add on a couple more months pre Xmas and it’s not been good.

So I have had in the back of my mind targeting a 3lb perch. I’ve never fished for perch before so it’s been a steep learning curve. I’ve had plenty of help from my mate Andy, however things just haven’t worked out. To be fair the last visit to the commercial fishery saw me catch a 2lb 11oz perch.

So I was heading to the same fishery on Monday to be there at dawn. The 40 mile drive was interesting, I was driven to distraction by following a mobile crane and with limited overtaking opportunities I arrived 15 minutes later than planned.

There was one other angler there whose name was Dave and he fishes it on a regular basis. We had just a quick chat before I headed for a corner of the lake that looked promising.

I was soon tackled up and ready to go. I was using ledgering gear with light rods (2) and 5lb main line with 1/2 oz or 14g leads weights. The hooks were size 10 one baited with two lob worms and the other with a jumbo prawn. The sun was soon coming up on the horizon but the gathering cloud soon extinguished any brightness.

The rigs were cast about 3 rod lengths out. Now there are few features on the lake and an even depth of about 4ft so the trick is to get the silver fish coming in hoping the perch will follow them. So once you cast it’s important to keep catapulting loose maggots to attract these small fish. As they dash around chasing the maggots so are the perch chasing them. Simple !!!

So pult the maggost in every 5 mins or so!

So the lake contains lots of carp and a 100lb of carp won the match over the weekend. It’s always a gamble on how many you hook during the day. Luckily for me they left me alone for most of the day.

The predicted rain came with the strong warm southerly winds making it essential to sit under the brolly, not so comfortably.

The bobbins lay very still on the ground, these are some I’ve been developing and I’ll write more about these later in the year.

It really was quite for the majority of the day. Dave down the bank from me had a carp and a bream but no perch. He was in one of the swims that produced the 100lb plus bag of carp!

Even the guys in the next swim were blanking to!

 

 

Everything changed at 3pm when I had a few liners then the bobbin rose on the prawn rod and I struck into a lovely little perch of 1lbs 15oz

Dave did the honours with the camera as I always like something for the blog.

I had changed from the jumbo prawn to a smaller one as the water temperature was still quite cold and this had fooled the perch.

Soon 20 minutes later at 3.20pm I hooked another perch this time it was a little larger at 2lbs 8oz..

So are they starting to feed. I had a few more lifts on the bobbins and I’m sure some were line bites from carp.

Then at 4.30pm just as Dave was packed up as he had enough of the mud and chatting to me I caught a 2lb 9oz perch which we thought would be close to 3lbs in the water, but it’s length and girth was insufficient to give it a better weight.

The rain has poured for the last 2 days and it’s warm. Time for barbel on the Bristol Avon.

I’m not going to waste too much of mine and your time as there was a blank for me today.

Roy was also fishing a good swim and he blanked too. Everything looked good for the 3 hour session but nothing came along.

I think it’s time to be perching again later this week.

Just one note Dan and Vince Williams plus their mate Trevor came down to my place to watch Bristol City play Watford a team they support. A quick fish and chip supper and then down to Bristol and a pint of cider in the aptly named Orchard Inn we were off to the stadium.

Well BCFC won the game 2-0 and it’s the first time we kept a clean sheet since April 2012. Watford played the better football but the windy conditions suited BCFC. Sorry guy’s the little people win sometimes.