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Attracting Perch to your swim


Tangled

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The local pool of about 2 1/2 acres with a max depth of about 4 foot 6 and a sandy/weedy bottom and no obvious "natural" features contains probably only perch and pike(that's all I've caught) and I'm the only person who fishes it. I've been fishing it 2 or 3 nights a week for a couple of hours until dark for the last 4 months.Some nights I can catch up to 20 perch 1/2 to 3/4 lb in 2 hours then other nights I won't catch at all. If I catch a fish in first 15 mins I know I will catch that night if I haven't I might as well go home(but I don't) and probably won't catch at all.I fish worm usually just off the bottom out of the weed and almost always catch on the drop or on the retrieve,have tried loose feed of maggot and chopped worm also floating blood worm pellets to try to attract the fish to the swim but if I aren't catching nothing seems to bring them to me.

Any ideas would be greatly welcomed.

 

Dave

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Cast out your worm tackle in front of you, then with another rod work a lure or spinner around the pond, retrieving towards where you have your bait. The theory, and I belive works, is that the stripies will follow your lure into your worm swim. The added advantage is you might get 'em on the lure too. However beware when they are 'on' you can't handle 2 rods at once and you might end up with deeply hooked Perch on the worms. You could try just lure fishing for a few sessions, a lightweight set up on a water like that could be great fun. (but then I am a confirmed lure angler). From the bank I prefer to ledger worms, although I do understand the thrill of a dipping float.

Edited by Emma two
"Some people hear their inner voices with such clarity that they live by what they hear, such people go crazy, but they become legends"
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Guest tigger
The local pool of about 2 1/2 acres with a max depth of about 4 foot 6 and a sandy/weedy bottom and no obvious "natural" features contains probably only perch and pike(that's all I've caught) and I'm the only person who fishes it. I've been fishing it 2 or 3 nights a week for a couple of hours until dark for the last 4 months.Some nights I can catch up to 20 perch 1/2 to 3/4 lb in 2 hours then other nights I won't catch at all. If I catch a fish in first 15 mins I know I will catch that night if I haven't I might as well go home(but I don't) and probably won't catch at all.I fish worm usually just off the bottom out of the weed and almost always catch on the drop or on the retrieve,have tried loose feed of maggot and chopped worm also floating blood worm pellets to try to attract the fish to the swim but if I aren't catching nothing seems to bring them to me.

Any ideas would be greatly welcomed.

 

Dave

 

 

If the water is only 2 1/2 acres instead of trying to attract the fish to you why not try just walking around it and casting to different places. Also if you cast in and don't have a bite then just keep giving the reel handle a couple of turns now and again at different speeds that usually attracts any Perch nearby.

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As above, just leapfrog rods around the lake if you can and your almost bound to run into some fish.

 

Hate to say it but pike (and probably perch) can be very finicky, some days there's nothing, even livebaits that will get them to strike.

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I like the 'moving around' style and it's one which I employ, I don't own a seat for fishing from (although might have to get one and settle myself down a bit).

Another method of attracting perch is to groundbait (cloudbait) to attract fry, and minnows where present, which in turn attracts the preditory perch. I used that method in conjunction with spinning around to draw 'em too, years ago on Hornsea mere (Yorkshire) which was noted for it's good perch, and we did catch, but of course one cannot say with 100% certainty that putting in the cloudbait made a significant difference, but it may not do any harm to try.

Edited by Emma two
"Some people hear their inner voices with such clarity that they live by what they hear, such people go crazy, but they become legends"
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Sometimes they just don’t want to feed. As a kid I fished a secret lake that was full of small perch. Like you if you caught one early in the session then you knew you were going to catch all day, I used to catch hundreds. Other days it did not matter what you did you just did not catch. You knew the fish were there but they just were not feeding.

This always seemed to happen when I took a friend. I had told them you could catch a Hundred or more perch and they would arrive all excited and then blank and never return.

It seems that perch can switch off the feed; it might be air pressure, or wind direction or water temperature I don’t know. I do know that when I first started fishing the lake there were only perch in it, but 3-4 years later on roach and Gudgen showed up.

If the perch weren’t feeding normally the others were.

I would say that the perch failed to show 1 in every 5 sessions. It could even be fish one day and catch, fish the next no fish and fish the following day and catch.

Strange but there you go that’s fishing.

You can see this pattern on rivers too, You might catch a mixed bag of fish including perch one day and the next another mixed bag but no perch from the same swim. It defiantly is a perch thing.

Jasper Carrot On birmingham city

" You lose some you draw some"

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Agreed, I wrote something similar on another thread earlier. There was a video clip posted on here a while ago (that painter and decorator who filmed underwater, anyone remember or have a link?) that showed perch just resting on the bottom, doing nothing. I reckon they spend a fair amount of time like that, big ones anyway. On a stream I fish for perch, you can sit there all day and swear there wasn't a perch in there, and all of a sudden, just as the light goes, they'll switch on for brief but frantic feeding spell. If you're in the right spot, you'll catch, if you're not, you won't. It drives you mad! On those extremely rare but amazing days when everything's just right, you can catch all day.

 

On some days you just know that your worm has been sitting within gulping range of a big perch all day, and it's just sat there and ignored it. Then when the light levels change it moves forward six inches and sucks it in.

 

For big perch, I don't think feeding is all that important. (People with more experience like Steve Burke may well disagree!) I've found they behave more like other predators like pike and zander than other fish like roach or bream. Location and time of day/weather conditions are the most important things. If they're not feeding, you can't make them.

 

However, you can attract feeding perch into your swim by feeding. Trickling maggots in often works - they like maggots but also like the small roach/etc. that maggots attract. Chopped worms on the bottom is good too.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music

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It's also worth noting that perch spook each other very easily and with pike in the water you can't always guarantee that the perch will move around freely.

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Also worth realising that light levels will also affect feeding.

 

Dull days are best, as is first light and twighlight .

 

Often perch are feeding at a certain depth (again probably associated with light levels).

 

As though finding where the perch are isn't hard enough, finding the depth at which they will take a bait makes it even harder (when 6" could be the difference between bites or blanking).

Edited by Leon Roskilly

RNLI Shoreline Member

Member of the Angling Trust

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Contrary to popular belief (and the way they behave sometimes) perch are not stupid. Several times on the L&L canal I've watched them in gin clear water at the near bank taking every maggot I've been dropping in one at a time, only for them to refuse point blank to take the one with a size 22 hook to 1lb line. And bear in mind this is freelining, watching the maggot, presentation as natural as it could possibly get, plonking the bait practically on their noses. These are not big old wised up fish either, these are the little stripeys you'd expect to swallow any bait down to their guts! How many times must we sit biteless with fish mopping up every free offering? We all know and curse mullet for this behaviour, maybe it's just that they are normally the only fish we can watch doing it!

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