Perch

[Tigger]

Well phone your right I've tried running a few shads and meps through them, even jelly worms. The fish are the biggest that I've seen in the water. As of now when I throw in lose feed they hit it instantly but just watch my hook bait fall (at the same pace as the free offerings) what I'm actually going to do is video this and post a link for it tomorrow. Hopefully someone will point out my wrong doing. I'm actually considering your post a while back on hook metals being a repellent, but it's not set in stone as the other perch on the canals take it fine?.

 

 

I've noticed many times that the larger perch are very often suspicious of baits and will glide round watching what's going on and letting the smaller fish go forward and hook themselves. I've even seen them do it with livebaits, they dash over as though to take the fish then just stop and back off checkin' it out.

Perch arn't the only fish to behave like this i've often seen roach and rudd do the very same thing. They seem to use the small fish as indicators lurking below them and watch them to see what happens.

Often your better off fishing on the bottom when it's like this as the larger fish seem to take the bait when it goes out of our sight.

For your perch i'd try a small livebait hooked just through the membrane/skin on the front of it's lip via a 14 or 16 animal barbed hook and 4lb to 6lb line straight through (sensor) and just strike the hook out of the baiter into the perch. At least that way the baiter gets a chance to swim another day .

[DarrenBranks]

Thanks for all the replies guys, informative asuall. I'm leaving to try again in an hour. I've got ahold of some very light line almost like human hair And I'm dropping hook size from 20 to 24. If that fails Im going to give you guys a more visual perspective on this, as when watching it really is puzzling.

 

 

Darren

[DarrenBranks]

Well my report,

 

 

Was a nice eventfull stroll to the spot, at which using my new methods I was going to get a monster. But guess what no perch there in fact no where to be seen. So I ended up doing my usall stuff on different stretches, producing some different size fish. I thought this is brilliant until I switched to a salmo slider. I cast to a spot(which is full of weed) and lost it not in a snag but in a cast, the clip from my spinning trace gave way to leave me with nothing gutted. Anyway that's what I can offer for a read. Feel free to add.

 

 

 

Darren

[AddictedToScopex]

Well my report,

 

 

Was a nice eventfull stroll to the spot, at which using my new methods I was going to get a monster. But guess what no perch there in fact no where to be seen. So I ended up doing my usall stuff on different stretches, producing some different size fish. I thought this is brilliant until I switched to a salmo slider. I cast to a spot(which is full of weed) and lost it not in a snag but in a cast, the clip from my spinning trace gave way to leave me with nothing gutted. Anyway that's what I can offer for a read. Feel free to add.

 

 

 

Darren

 

You may find that now the days are getting a bit colder that the perch will begin to disappear. I am expecting the same to happen on the canal fish as it certainly did last year and they were not to be seen until the air temps got back over 18 degrees consistently. I must get out before that happens to try and bag a few more before my pike season kicks in.

[Andy Macfarlane]

Darren, have you tried twitching a worm past these perch? A moving worm will often trigger a response where a static bait under a float won't. I know myself it's not that unusual for perch to refuse a bait in front of their face but a little movement often solves the problem and it's more active. I cast a good distance past the perch, allow the bait/float to settle and then give the reel handle a sharp turn, count to 5 and then repeat.

 

As for you trace clip, you need something pretty substantial, like a Cross-Lok or something of a similar type.