Anyone tried this, or happened to get lucky?
Before he disappeared from this forum Diamond Geezer put me on to a stretch of the Bristol Avon that he descibed as "mega-perch country". I'm off there tomorrow and only have lamprey as freshwater deadbaits. I know it's likely to be weedy and difficult country for luring.
Any advice on perch + lamprey appreciated, even if it's only "catch some roach instead"

p.s. if it's perch you want, get down to Cider Country. The Brizzle Avon is heaving with perchy lumps right now.

cheers all

Small lumps of lamprey on a six or eight brilliant.
You'll also catch lots of chub on the same set up as well. Real wrap round bites so hang on to your rod butt

Go search your lawn with a torch when it gets dark, for some nice juicy lobworms for a free alternative bait

[ 15. August 2005, 08:48 PM: Message edited by: NetFull ]

Go search your lawn with a torch when it gets dark, for some nice juicy lobworms for bait. Keep the lamprey for Pike fishing and stop messing around more like!!

Glenn, you may do well with chub but if you manage a perch or two on frozen lamphrey then it'll probably be more by luck than judgement. I've never had any success with anything other than perfectly fresh baits. Either live or freshly dead, but never any of my frozen deads. I bought a bulk pack of the right size 4-5 inch roach early last year, thinking that these would do the business on the days when I'd be short of livebaits. Caught plenty of pike and a couple of chub but no perch. Thats in a spot where I know there to be river perch weighing at least close on 4lb

Perch may be predators but unlike their pike, zander and chub cousins, they most definitely are not scavengers. I'd hedge my bets and try to pick up a few small livebaits too. Or take poach's advice and find some decent size lobs.

i agree with most of the comments so far, frozen lamprey have been used extensively whilst on pike and zander sessions and ive never had perch, unlike when using roach when the odd stripey has turned up. id go with lobs if id not fished a place before and especially if its on a river. have to diagree with argyll slightly about perch not using scavingermethods of feeding though, i have had reasonable perch on frozen (not fresh) deads, but as steve burke and others have noted this feeding stratergy is more commonly found on commercial fisheries and not rivers. I would also advise the use of gudgeon (especially live) but there a little scarce now so my most sucsess has come from using small skimmers rather than roach or rudd.

As usual I agree with Gerry. I've never tried lamphrey for perch, but have found like Gerry that fresh baits are almost essential. I've often frozen deadbaits as soon as I've got home after catching them, but they've proved inferior to a freshly-killed bait.

I'd add that perch very rarely take a static sea deadbait. It may be that they're not fresh enough; alternatively they may not like the taste.

The only thing I take issue with Gerry about is perch not being scavengers, and then only partly. Some individual perch are, and these are often the biggest. However, even then I'd be much more confident with a fresh bait.

As you may remember from the programme I did for Sky TV's Predator series I'm a great fan of deadbaits for big perch. For more advice on perch baits see my article at http://anglersnet.co.uk/authors/steve10.htm

As a very broad generalisation, I find that on coloured waters lives and freshwater deads are usually the best baits. On clear waters worms are usually better, as are lures.

So I'd echo the advice to get yourself some worms and try these as well. If you look for low-light swims with less current than you'd choose for chub I'd bet on worms picking up specimen "stripeys" if they're there!

However, please do try lamphrey as well and let us know how you get on. The results of the experiment would be very interesting - even if they show that lamphrey doesn't work well.

<small>[ 15. August 2005, 10:12 PM: Message edited by: Steve Burke ]</small>

im impressed with this forum if leading perch expert steve burke posts on here. i must say that i do subscribe to many of your theorys on all aspects of perch steve and have gleamed numerous tips from your writngs so thankyou. was that really a 4lber that he lost on predators at the death steve? devastating or what.

Yes, I'm fairly certain it was. Kev Green was devastated for a long, long time afterwards!

It was probably the same fish that had spat the bait out at me the first time I connected with it. I thought it was over 4lbs then, but almost certainly it was the same short, fat fish I caught a few trips later at 3-13. This was followed by a repeat capture at the same weight, and so I moved off the water immediately afterwards.

Interestingly, despite fishing livebaits about twice as much as deads, this fish took a deadbait each time.

ive been after a 4 for a few years now and cant imagine losing one so close to the net. I am planning to go in the next fortnight to a place that i found whilst piking, a shoal of about 30 -40 smallish perch to half a pound followed a lure in and it wasnt until i used a small jointed shad rap in perch colours that i had anything over 8oz, first cast with the shad rap a 2lb 7oz perch. it was interesting to discover that only small perch would take silver spinners etc or worms but the big perch (at this location) seem to be rather canabalistic, have you encountered this anywhere?