jungle warfare

                                  It's not everyone's cup of tea,

scrambling through balsam, brambles and nettles just to get to the water. I'm bitten, scratched and stung, balsam seeds are pinging about in all directions like little bullets and my fleece is now festooned with burs that stick like velcro. I'm in my element. This is real fishing!

Perhaps it's the attraction of finding a swim that's not yet been plundered. Or the feeling of being on some kind of hairbrained adventure. Maybe it's just that I'm a big kid at heart. There is no doubt that catching perch from a jungle swim is wizard fun and today I've snatched an hour by the stream side at one of my favourite marks.

I call this place 'cabbage corner'. It's like an elbow in the river channel and the near bank is undercut, the current slack and enough silt has built up to allow a thick bed of 'cabbage' to flourish on the outside of the bend. Perch like to loiter amongst the stems to dart out at baitfish feeding on the gravel bed that runs down the middle of the channel.    

My dropshot weight is simply a BB split shot - just heavy enough that the soft bait inches along with the flow if I hold the line clear of the water. All that is really needed is to track the lure  with the rod and slowly reel in the line to stay in contact. The braid above the water can act as a good indicator if bites are subtle, although usually the take is pretty positive as the perch strikes and turns with the lure in the flow. 

This is a nice way of presenting the lure because it allows you to cover all sorts of nooks and crannies. Just by adjusting your rod angle and where you cast will let the current carry your lure on different paths to different destinations. 

A little twitch now and then can often induce a hit and it's with high anticipation that I flick my light little rig out into mid channel. Nothing on the first drift, or on the second. But on the third drift the softbait swings around to the edge of the cabbage bed and I hold it there for just a second before a solid double tap signals a take. 

It's a good small stream perch - just what I was hoping for. Beautiful solid colours and with bags of attitude, these river fish know how to scrap. But after a spirited tussle in the cabbage patch I manage to horse him out and into the net. A couple more follow around the same size and then the little pool goes dead. That's it - I've put the fish down for now. Usually I like to release perch a little distance away from where I have caught them to delay the alarm signals reaching back to the shoal. But here the jungle makes this impractical, so a couple of nice fish is good going and now it's time to move on. I'm bitten, scraped and scratched and look like I've been dragged backwards through a hedge (which in a way I have), but I'm grinning like a village idiot all the way back home.