More perch fishing and yet another 3lber

The rivers were still in flood and high. The Hampshire Avon has been in the fields for months now. Sure enough the quantities of rain was diminishing however there is so much ground water that any showers go straight into the river sending the levels up once more.

So Andy (you should have been here yesterday) Cowley and I travelled to the perch fishery once more. We arrived at first light 7am and quickly sorted out who was fishing where. It appears that the perch feed early morning hence the reason to have the rods made up ready to cast out. I was soon in my chosen swim casting out. The first rod with prawn went out after first spombing out some pieces of prawn and red maggots. I hadn’t even started to fill the feeder on the second rod before the first rods bobbin started it’s slow journey up to the rod butt. I struck into the perch. It started to tug back on the other end of the line. I don’t put extreme pressure on the fish when playing them as they have soft tissue arund the mouth and you don’t want the hooks pulling out or damaging it. As it came to the net I could see it was a lovely looking perch. No the largest one I had caught but a beauty of 2lbs 12oz . Feeling pleased with myself I soon slipped the perch back after weighing it. I missed another run on the same rod once I recast and then it went really quiet. Andy had experienced exactly the same result one bite after just casting the first rod out and then nothing. We had agreed that should bites dry up then it was possible the perch had moved off. So after 90 minutes without a bleep from the alarms I decided to move around to the other side of the lake. It took me a couple of trips to get the gear around to the next swim.

I repeated the process of spombing out some pieces of prawn and red maggots at 30 yds and 20yds. The wind now was blowing in my face and shining sun took the chill from the wind but didn’t help with light values.

Then out of the blue at 12.30 the 30 yd rod gave a bleep then another bleep before the bobbin slowly starting it’s rise to the rod. I struck into the fish and felt that ragged perch fight on the other end of the rod. With the wind in my face I was unsure how much pressure I was exerting on the fish or wind. So I took it steady and slowly it came to the waiting net. It was a smaller specimen of 2lbs 9oz but these fish are great looking perch. I beleive any perch over 2lbs is a good fish. After a quick photo it was returned to the lake. In the mean time Andy moved to the other end of the lake as his bites had dried up too.

I put out a little more bait and recast to 30yds. It was passed lunch time by now and the afternoon was moving on when at 2pm the 20yd rod bobbin flickered up towards the rod. Again once it had reached the top I struck into a good perch. This one seemed to be giving a better account of it’s self. On the scales it was 2lbs 14oz and a looker too.

Andy thought about moving once again when he text me to say he had 2 perch in quick succession 2.10 and 2.14 so was staying put.

The afternoon was moving towards evening when the bobbin on the 30yd rod crept towards the rod once more. Hitting the perch at range needs a reasonable swing of the rod. I connected with a good fish. It fought much more than the other two from the swim. Powerful runs too when close in. The vortexes from the fight on the lakes surface were shifting large volumes of water. Slowly the fish came over the net and it looked not so deep as the others but very wide almost a different shape. It still had the hump of a big fish. On the scales it went 3lbs 1oz so another 3lber for me. This was at about 4.45pm just as the sun was ready for setting in the sky.

I recast hoping for the final feeding session of the perch but nothing much materialised. Just a few half lifts and tugs. The sunset though was spectacular and that was enough for me. Us anglers see so many of these we are just so lucky.