As I write this piece I am watching the rain pour down my wafer thin windows, the weather fluctuation is typical of this time of year. My old man keeps moaning about it and to be honest I don't blame him, a couple of weeks ago I was fishing for Perch with my friend Julian on a commercial that has recently done a 5lb er. Any way the point is that we were wearing t shirts as the sun was shining with a temperature of 15 degrees, ahhhh spring is on its way....or so I thought. Days later we took a trip to the glorious Emperor lakes to film a Pike fishing DVD demonstrating basic methods and handling for an up and coming free supplement from Fox. A reschedule looked like a good idea when we met at Exeter services at 5 30 am, the temperature was -3 with a gale force easterly blowing the shit out of everything that caught its path. As we drove up to higher ground the snow was falling and actually settling,what a massive contrast to the lazy perch fishing we enjoyed the previous week.Without giving to much away it turned out that we made the right decision in ignoring the bad weather.
The Perch trip I spoke of earlier was no walk in the park. The weather was pleasant but the perch seemed to be in a bit of a mood and very unwilling to show themselves.The pond was only about 1 acre at a push, but what it lacked in size it made up for with features and lots of perchy looking hideouts. Prey fish were also plentiful; and what I deducted from a days float fishing with maggot was that it contained little to no small perch.This is a good thing when targeting a big Perch in a small pond for a number of reasons.The main one being that little perch are notoriously greedy little scamps and of often make a habit of snatching baits intended for their grandparents. Another one being that the less predators there are in a water means the less competition there is for food, which generally is the perfect ingredient for a donkey commercial Perch.This doesn't make for easy fishing tho, far from it.
As you can see I managed to winkle out a lovely plump old warrior, to read the full story and see what others we caught pick up a copy of next months Improve your course fishing magazine which will also explain all the methods and tactics we used to catch a few cracking stripey's..
Til next time
good luck
