Perch success

[Anthony78]

I class myself as an alrounder but do enjoy targetting the specimens in my local waters given the chance so after closing the river season on a high having caught 7 barbel to over 8lb it was time to start thinking about the big tinca's in my local lake.

 

My favourd tench water has depths ranging from 2 to 9 feet and with the night time temps dropping to around freezing I decided to head to the deeper area knowing that I'd stand a chance of getting into a bream should the tench not have woken up from their winter slumber.

 

I set up a light waggler for down the margin in 6ft of water and planned to feed this with red maggot and 3mm carp pellets. A 'sleeper rod' would be set up on a small method feeder packed with a light fishmeal groundbait and no freebies so as to attract but not fill any passing bream/tench.

 

After a few small roach on the waggler everything went quiet so thinking that something big had moved over the bait I moved the float up by a couple of inches and placed half a dendra on the hook. Less than a minute after the float settled it slid away. A very disapointing fight resulted in the below 5lb carp/crucian/brown gold fish looking thing which I only ever seem to catch on this lake. Any ideas??

 

 

This was the only decent fish I had on this line and although the sleeper rod produced two very nice bream of 7lb+ I realised that the water temperature on this lake hadn't risen enough to get the tench properly routing around for grub.

 

Now, with the rivers closed and the tench unwilling to feed I had to have a think about what to target for the second half of the weekend. My local carp lake was starting to get busy again with 'alarms at full wack crap fishermen' I mean carp fishermen. Sorry always get that one wrong .

 

Scratching my head I suddenly thought about the big perch that my dad had caught while maggot fishing at his local commercial and on my last visit I qizzed the bailif about the lakes stock. Apparently only a handful of perch were added to control the numbers of small fish and over the years they had grown on, unpressurised and gauging on stunted roach.

 

The decision was made, on my return I added some mixed spice to the 2 pints of red maggots I had left from my earlier tench session and dug out a couple of kilo's of black crumb. A quick detour to the supermarket for some uncooked king prawns and a quick phonecall to the old man and the session was planned.

 

Awakening to a ground frost and knowing that showers had been forecast for later I was hoping that this would stop some of the 'crap anglers' oops from coming out and disturbing the peace and quiet. Arriving at the lake I found a gentle breeze blowing into a small bay and with around 3 ft of water I thought that this would be a good a place to start.

 

Once again I decided to set up a waggler rod and a sleeper rod. Both would be fished on prawn until the bailiff arrived where upon I would ask very kindly if I could dispatch a couple of small roach for bait. Mixing and riddling the groundbait, so it would create a nice cloud in the water, I proceeded to feed a lightly squeezed ball every 5 - 10 minutes to keep the small fry in the area. As you can see from the below shot this appeared to work

 

 

The spicy maggots would be fed every 15 – 20 mins using a bait dropper to keep some bait on the bottom where I hoped to draw the perch down to my waiting prawn hookbait.

 

The sleeper rod would be fished on a low resistance ledger rig and would be fished a few feet from the feeding zone where I hoped to pick up a big stripey that might be watching the baitfish from a distance.

 

An hour into the session I quickly realised 2 things. 1 – Carp like prawns. 2 – So do bloody bream . Using larger pieces of prawn I managed to keep the snotties at bay but was still catching the odd carp to 5lbs. When I saw the bailiff doing his rounds I knew this was my opportunity to improve my chances.

 

Using my powers of persuasion I was given permission to catch a couple of small roach for bait. I changed both rigs to take a larger size 4 kamasan B980 and baited up with a couple of 2 inch roach. After repositioning the sleeper rod I swung the waggler rig out to the area followed by another small ball of groundbait to pull the small fish back into the area.

 

The float settled and slid away. A firm strike met with a hefty curve in the float rod and instantly I was cursing my luck as I'd discovered another carp bait. Imagine my surprise when this carp had stripes!!! This thing was huge and through the whole fight I was shouting to my dad that I'd got something very special. As I slipped the net under it I let out a big shout and started dancing around like the kid that caught his first fish over 28 years ago.

 

With my hands shaking I zero'd the scales and slipped in my prize. The needle settled on 4lb 1oz. A new pb and the fish of a lifetime!

 

 

 

As you can see I was extremely happy. Not only for catching this incredible creature but for being able to share this with my dad who was as happy as I was.

 

I fished on but unfortunately I didn't manage any more stripeys. I did get a run on my sleeper rod just before dusk and thought that this might be another big perch but it turned out to be this predatory carp of 11 1/2lb which was a surprise finish to a fantastic session

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading

[jack1432]

WOW cracking perch mate doesn't surprise me there are Perch to 4lb.

look at all that fry!

 

Jack

Edited March 19, 2012 by jack1432

[Anderoo]

Wow! Superb, congratulations, what a giant! Well deserved Ant

Edited March 19, 2012 by Anderoo

[Dick Dastardly]

Great perch Ant!

[JV44]

wot they said that is a cracking stripey well done .

[Dave H]

Very nice Perch indeed

[Andrew Burgess]

Nice one Ant

[AddictedToScopex]

Lovely perch. Congrats. Bet your still smiling about that one. I would be.

[Anthony78]

Cheers guys. I'm still buzzing as you can imagine.

 

Can anyone help with the identity of the carp in the first photo. It appears to be cammon carp but has characteristics of a crucian or the old fantail carp I used to catch as a boy.

 

I've only ever caught this strain on this particular lake and would be interested if it's likely to be a descendent of the original wildies or if they would have been introduced?

 

Thanks

 

Ant

[chesters1]

great perch ,if theres one fish thats worth waiting for its a good sized perch