to catch a monster

      Rumours are circulating of giant perch.

Giant gravel pit perch. The kind of stories that often do the rounds, frequently embellished, exaggerated or just plain untrue. 


Except that these reports are first hand accounts from some good friends of mine - dedicated perch anglers, and they have been making some exceptional captures.  
     
It is very generous of my friends to share their 'intel' with me, particularly as I know the vast amount of time they have invested in the venue to unlock some of its secrets. 

So I arrive at the water with A.D, daring to hope that one of us will connect with a monster. This lake is vast, much of it is out of bounds and there is no access by boat but we are able to fish a few of the known features from the bank.

This kind of water is very different from the intimate venues I often fish, with wind, undertow and distance to contend with. So I have tackled up accordingly. Gone today is the UL gear, replaced by a Greys G-lite Spin, a 3000 reel and 10kg braid. No fluoro, instead a fine Wolfram trace and 5gm jig head.


I'm trying a Lunker City Ribster on a size 1 hook. I love the versatility of this lure. It makes a great swimbait and is perfect for wacky and neko presentations, but today it's mounted onto a simple jig head. 


My sea trout rod has enough sensitivity to detect small knocks but enough grunt to jerk jigs and set the hook at range... or subdue a powerful hog of a perch should I be lucky enough to connect. And I'll not get messed up by the inevitable pike attacks.


It's 5pm and we are taking advantage of the pre-dusk feeding window. We both get lots of knocks, a few perch around the pound mark and a jack pike apiece. The perch here have the intense colouration typical of clearwater fish, fin perfect and pristine.


But no connection with the resident monsters of the lake. I do think I glimpse a big perch following me in but I can't be sure. The sun sets and that's it for today. Tonight and the next night, and the next, I will dream of giant perch.


So here I am, back at the next opportunity. No local help this time, I'm on my own from here on in. Today I will be fishing with a neat little lure that has been producing some big fish here. It's a silver and white soft 4play mounted on a 1/0 7gm jig head. A spinner blade is mounted onto the hook before the soft bait goes on. The blade gives a sharp flash on the drop, and pushes a bit more water, making the lure a great attractor pattern. It's very useful for searching big water and deadly when perch are up and chasing baitfish.  Given to me by my good friend D.P, it's a clever little dodge.

The sun is already dipping low as I make my first cast, hopping the softbait along the lake bed. A quicker retrieve mid water will get hammered by jack pike and pass too quickly, I think, over the perch. I have learned of a snag close in which rises up from a mussel bed, and I know some good fish have been taken here.



So I'm bumping my lure along until I can feel the change of texture that tells me I'm over the mussel bed. Now some bigger hops and longer pauses. After a few passes an aggressive  pluck and I strike into a solid fish which turns out to be a lovely perch in the two to three pound class. I'm careful to release the fish some distance away to avoid spooking the other perch I hope are bunching around the snag.

I recast but no more takes from the mussel bed so I search the surrounding area with my lure, but nothing. Nothing at all. The lake bed is fairly uniform in depth and with no other obvious features the draw of the mussel bed is strong. So I recast and pass by the snag once more. 



I'm fishing in around ten feet of water, right under my feet, when the take comes. Not really a pluck but a sudden weight moving off with my lure in the opposite direction to my retrieve, back towards the snag. For a second my heart skips before I realise that it's a classic pike hit. A good pike though and it's hit and hold to keep her from reaching the snag. She stays deep, the rod is well into its fighting curve but I turn her just in time. She ploughs back, the clutch is ticking and I'm not at all sure the hook can hold for much longer. Let's get this over with. Rod high, I force her up from the depths and into the light of the setting sun. And as she turns I see not the patterning of a pike but the stripes of a perch.


My eyes pop and my jaw drops, such a big powerful perch. The net is out and she rolls away from it twice but I sink the net deep and her third roll takes her in. On the unhooking mat I simply can't believe my eyes. 4lb 6 oz, 48cm and it's only early October! This fish could easily go 5lb in March and she's a young fish with growing still to do.






'Personal bests' are funny things. They come and they go. Actually sometimes they don't go at all. Sometimes they stay for ever. The thing is, you never really know. 

If you pursue big perch then sooner or later you may catch something really special. And then you will have to come to terms with the very real possibility that you may never in this lifetime catch another perch as big. If this is mine then I'll take that.



 

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..

       

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.