As I sit and write, I can feel that warm tingle on my face from all the sun I have exposed myself too.I gotta stop forgetting the sun cream, Anyway my angling exploits have taken me some miles this month and I'm starting to really feel the lack of sleep catching up with me.
There is a lot of catching up to do as I have very busy on the banks but have found little time to put it to pen, to start of with let me just confess my new found love of lure fishing. I sneaked a couple of sessions on the river before the close season hit us tacking a few good doubles on the trusty shad hammer,whilst slowly bouncing perch replicants through slack water.
over the last few weeks I have made thousands of casts, firstly I fished a BLAC (British lure angling championships) qualifier on the Exeter canal, Lets just say that was some what of an eye opener. Just like my pal Julian predicted it was the perch anglers that really stole the show. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm complete novice in the art of lure fishing but the guy I was paired with (Dan Sissons) most defiantly was not.The first thing I noticed was how small the lures (20mm shad with a 1g jig-head) he had rigged up on his rods were. after a chat he explained to me he intended on using tiny cute little lures to bag up on small perch, after all a big fish can also take a small lure can't it?
I took us to an area I knew held some perch as they had been following a large spinner bait I had been using there a few days before.We arrived in the swim and I put on a nice shiny replicant twist in a roach pattern fresh out the packet, there on the far margin stood a nice overhanging bush which most often houses a pike or two, lets get the lure right under it I thought.....Wrong, like a complete bell-end I lobbed it straight into the bush and had to crack the lot off.
I don't think Dan noticed or perhaps he was to polite to laugh,either way I had quite literally got off to a cracking start.But enough about my noddy exploits,this dude from Portsmouth was slaying it. He was working micro lure's close to the near bank, consistently catching small perch along with the odd micro jack. his impressive catch earned him a qualifying position in the final which will be held at the mighty Chew valley reservoir.
I finished the match with a perch of 15 cm which saved me from an embarrassing blank on my own turf, still I learned a lot from my time watching Dan and yes I now have my own ultra light set up (a 6ft 3-12g casting rate rod coupled with an ultron 1500 loaded with 10lb braid) and I'm pleased to say In the short time I have owned it I have caught lots of Perch, some jack pike which really go like stink when they realise there hooked and a few Zander to the 5lb mark.
This method of fishing I have found to be very absorbing and addictive, and best of all lots of fun.
I was hoping for it to be a bit of a turkey shoot but on the day we found the pike to be very inquisitive in that we had lots of follows from big and small pike, but they just weren't feeling angry let alone hungry.however some pike were willing to have a go and during the 6 hours we had afloat I managed 2 pike and a rainbow trout of the surface, which went totally ballistic giving me a proper scrap. However trout did not count towards the total so I finished with a un- qualifying length of 115 cm, else where on the water John Horsey's boat partner landed a 20lb plus Pike which I believe was the only big Pike of the heat. But fish of the day had to go to local lad Danny Parkins who had a 9 inch swim bait engulfed by a 3lb 8oz Perch, what a jammy git!
Aside from the lures I have also been doing some serious bait and wait fishing, a trip to the awesome river Segre in Spain saw me and the boys embark on a epic adventure in search of silly sized Cat fish and Carp.And yeah I did take my ultra light lure set-up as I believe there to be some good Zander fishing also.
But that's a whole different story.
Until next time
Good luck
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