meet the crays

Splosh. Wait. Hop..donk! There's no mistaking the take. The rod buckles over again and another good perch is on. This is fun! Perhaps it's the flyfisher in me but I love 'matching the hatch' - offering the perch an imitation of their natural prey of the moment. And today this is crayfish. 

  
It's lunch time and I've left the insanity of the office behind for a lightening raid on 'Gudgeon Corner'. Time is short but the action comes thick and fast. 

I'm back on the little stream. A cold north-westerly wind has mixed up the water layers on the gravel pit I have been fishing of late. The perch have been pushed away from the areas I can reach and fishing there has become hard. Not so on the river though. It's amazing how a simple switch to a different fishing environment can  improve your fortunes. Instead of slogging away and blanking at the stillwater I'm enjoying some fine sport on the stream.

Despite recent rain, water clarity is good but the level is quite low for autumn. This has the effect of concentrating the perch into the deeper pools and holes, making them easier to locate. I like to walk the rivers I fish when the water is low. All sorts of potholes, snags, undercuts and deep runs can be discovered that would normally be hidden from view by deeper coloured water. All have perch holding potential and as they say in the forces - time spent in reconnaissance  is never wasted!    

My set up today is a 2 1/2" baby craw from Old Bay mounted on a Savage Gear 5gm stand up jig hook. This gives a very realistic swim and glide escape pattern, and when the lure is at rest the cray stands up with waving pincers. I have on a fine wolfram trace which has no detectable negative effect on hit rate and gives me the peace of mind that any jack attacks can be happily dealt with.  

Takes seem consistently more aggressive with crayfish lures. My theory is that the perch has to bite down hard onto the natural cray to disable it, because of it's heavy body armour. Crays can swim rapidly over short distances and also have the ability to quickly back into any tiny crevice when threatened. The perch must strike decisively  or risk missing out on a high protein meal. It certainly makes for exciting fishing when, as today, the perch are really switched on to crayfish.

I'm looking forward to showing the crayfish lure to some gravel pit perch once the wind has turned and they come back on the feed..