Post Christmas perching
Entry posted by Rusty
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K&A Canal, Monday 26th December 2011
This was just a short morning session along the canal with a pot of lobs and ½ a pint of maggots. My attempt at an ambitious Christmas dinner hadn’t gone well the previous day and whilst I was keen to fish I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of time in the kitchen to figure out why my orange sauce didn’t taste of oranges despite being loaded with Cointreau.
In terms of the fishing there’s not much to report. It’s a long stretch and conditions were very good (if a little breezy) but all the likely looking spots I tried were fishless, I couldn’t even tempt the tiddlers. Salvation came in the form of just one bite and one perch possibly weighing 2lbs and that was it for the morning;
The trip was also used to try a higher breaking strain of braid. I am a fan of using braid for trotting but I haven’t found a brand that doesn’t have one characteristic that I don’t like. The best of the bunch IMO is Fireline Crystal and I’ve used it in 6 & 8lb BS. Today I’d loaded the Witcher with 10lb BS, it’s supposed to be the same diameter as 4lb mono (0.2mm) so I thought I may as well take advantage of the low diameter and gain some strength. Well if this stuff is 0.2mm diameter then my name’s Chris Yates, it’s like rope compared to the lower breaking strains and caused all sorts of problems by coiling off the reel. I’ll continue with it in a ‘proper’ trotting session (the canal was hardly moving) but first impressions weren’t good.
The day did end on a high note with the identification of a vital missing ingredient in my orange sauce, the zest of two oranges, I can’t believe I missed that.
River Thames, Goring, Tuesday 27th December 2011
A return to the location of the epic boys week away reported in October’s blog.
Steve & Alex had left their Kennet mooring on Boxing Day and were planning to arrive at Goring mid-morning on the Tuesday after an overnight stop. An overheating engine and a jammed lock gate slowed their progress and whilst both problems were fixed it meant that they didn’t arrive until early afternoon. I’d been fishing for an hour before the intrepid boaters arrived with not so much as a touch on maggot, lobs or lures. This was worrying, I was on livebait catching duty and had to confess that I hadn’t caught any. Suitably chastised I went for a walk and a sulk, the route into the village took me over this bridge and I did what all anglers do when the walk or drive over a river…..I looked in;
The sight which greeted me was truly miraculous, I’ve never seen anything like this before, thousands of silvers all shoaled up tightly. A few maggots dropped in confirmed they were feeding and so I walked briskly back to the boat to report the find. Five minutes later a freelined maggot was lowered in with the predictable result, instant livebait;
I didn’t actually see the ‘No Fishing’ sign although I suppose I should’ve expected one to be there. I managed five fish before a resident appeared and gave me a good telling off for fishing on the bridge. I’m 51 years old but I felt like I was 14 again as I apologised and shuffled off.
But, importantly, livebaits were secured and so perching could commence in earnest. It was slow going until about 3:30pm when it seemed like a switch had been flicked. Steve caught a fine 2lb 8oz perch on the livebait which for some reason didn’t get photographed, then a swim we’d been topping up with maggots for silvers switched on and small roach started feeding. Shortly after that small perch move into the swim so that was the signal to switch to lobworms.
It was most unlike a normal perch bite where the float ‘donks’ away. This time the float gently moved on the surface against the direction of the minimal flow. A firm lift into the bite annoyed something at the other end and it screamed off with energy that suggested a pike had taken the lob. It was short lived though, after a couple of runs the fish tired and Steve caught a glimpse confirming that it was a “lump of a perch”. It was as well, 3lb on the nose and it had the characteristic orange fins of Thames perch. Compare it with the fins of the Kennet perch above which are bright red;
That wasn’t quite the end of the action, Steve caught a 2lb jack again in front of an audience. They were quite impressed but Steve wasn’t, while I rushed to get the camera he sneakily slid the fish back not wanting to be photographed;
As the light finally disappeared bites stopped, we’d had about an hour of opportunity and that pattern would be repeated the following day but for now we packed up and I checked in at the John Barleycorn pub where I’d be staying for the night. The dinner, wine & real ale finished me off and I slept very well indeed.
Wednesday 28th December 2011
There was no real rush to start fishing on the Wednesday, indications were that the predators wouldn’t feed until the afternoon so I decided to try tempting the huge shoal of silvers out from their sanctuary under the bridge. I set up further upstream, away from the bridge and safe from prying and authoritative eyes.
It took a while for anything to happen but after trickling in maggots for what felt like ages I started to catch roach, dace and bleak like they were going out of fashion. Steve now had more livebaits than he could use so we released some of the smaller fish and kept the decent roach. Back to the swim and I tried for perch with firstly lobs and then the drop shotting rod, the theory being that the presence of so many prey fish was bound to attract predators. Small perch took the lobs as soon as they hit the water so I switched to drop shotting using a very slow retrieve. This was equally as effective and great fun to boot, I could see the perch following the lure and when they went for it they just engulfed the small dying minnow in one go!
Witching hour approached so I packed up and went back to the swim where yesterday’s 3lb perch had been caught. The livebait rods were out and they were soon followed by float fished lobs, the perfect ambush. Unfortunately the result wasn’t what we were hoping for, a decent perch took my lobworm but instead of powering away it decided to thrash about on the surface, we got a good look at it and estimated it to be a big ‘two’ but never found out as the hook pinged and nearly whacked Steve in the face. Steve has subsequently revised his estimate and the fish will always be known as “the 4lb perch that Rusty lost” It was nowhere near 4lb, honest.
As with the previous day bites stopped abruptly when the light faded and so I said my goodbyes and drove home via the Indian takeaway having had a great couple of days socialising and fishing.
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