The new season's nearly here, and I have plans for a big perch hunt on the rivers. Stuff I have read by Archie Braddock and others says that in the winter big perch are best caught on the bottom at dusk but, amazingly, in summer an ideal time is the middle of the day in bright sun in mid-water on maggot or livebait. I think this advice is for rivers, not canals or lakes. Actually, when I've looked on Archie's website at his diary I haven't found many big perch caught on maggot this way, though certainly he's had plenty on livebait at the edge of swims where he's fishing maggot on a second rod.

Livebait is not allowed on most of my local waters, nor are two rods, but that still leaves spinning and maggot fishing. Presumably if perch are feeding mid water in bright sunlight and will take a livebait they'll also take a spinner?

But I lack faith! The reason is this. Even though the target hasn't been big perch, there are plenty of times I've trotted maggot in bright sunlight, and I've also tried spinning a few times, and I've found it pretty disastrous, and found it's best to wait till the evening. So what's the difference if I do the same thing with the aim of catching big perch? A slightly different choice of swim, maybe, but will that really make a difference? I can't help wondering if Archie's experience might not be specific to the rivers he fishes?

So what is other people's experience of hunting big perch in summer?

So what

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http://anglers-net.co.uk/authors/steve04.htm is an article I wrote called "Hunting Summer Perch".

As you say, John, waters differ. Archie was fishing with me at Wingham this weekend, and this one of the many topics we discussed. Generally though, I find dusk, and better still dawn, to be best for perch in summer.

Sometimes the fish don't read the rulebook though. Last summer at Wingham most of my perch came in the middle of bright sunny days, but this is unusual.

This last weekend, I had two specimen stripies. One came at 4.30a.m and the other (surprisingly) at 5.45p.m.

From my own experience of river fishing one particular stretch for big perch, the best of it is usually over before the sun is up. If I'm 30 mins late in reaching my intended swim, I can miss the best of the fishing entirely. I also now know that the small shoals of big perch are constantly on the move, following the shaded water along one side of the river. I used to think that they simply stopped feeding but they dont. They move into the shade and also stop feeding.....until dusk when they dine out in another part of the river. I assue overnight they move back to their morning spot ready to feed at dawn. Small perch are less choosy, they can be caught right through the day at all depths.

John,

I can think of no better way of catching a big summer perch in a river than using a live minnow. Lobworms come in a close second IMHO.
Avon rod, 5lb line, size 10 hook, chubber float, stalking approach.
If you want to be really serious big perch man, buy an aerated live bait bucket, catch your minnows one day, hunt your perch the next. Not many people can be bothered to do this (including me).

Good luck.

Has anyone night fished for them? I remember my early forays into night fishing used to turn up some bid specimens well fish over two pounds anyway.
I also remember maggots being as successful as any other bait, though a live Gudgeon came a close second.
I have not tried fishing overnight for them in recent years being too obsessed with Carp and Tench, but I may give it a try again.

Perch rarely feed at night. In fact, despite many attempts at catching them in the dark I've found it simply not worthwhile, and this ties in with the experience of other perch specialists.

Of course, there's always the odd exception and Tony may have found one, but I find that it pays to fish for other species in the dark and restrict my perch fishing to daylight hours, particularly in low light such as dawn or dusk. I'd add though that I have sometimes done fairly well for perch in clear water in bright moonlight.

P.S. I've just remembered that I did have one evening on a Great Ouse fish-in many years ago when I caught masses of small perch after dark. In those days the river was crawling with them! Matt Hayes predicted that we'd have some great fishing for specimen stripies on the Ouse in years to come. Wasn't he right!

[ 23. May 2005, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: Steve Burke ]

Steve
Interestingly, the Lake I used to fish was illuminated by street lights, so much so that you could fish by float without a starlight.
This may go someway to explain the phenomena

[ 23. May 2005, 11:48 AM: Message edited by: Tony U ]