River perch fishing

Thursday the 23rd of February

Wednesday afternoon had seen me blank in style in a swim riddled with chub, I fished the maggot feeder and didn't do anything wrong as far as I could tell but it just didn't happen. A couple of feeder knocks were the highlight of the session despite scaling down to a size twenty hook and 3.3lb low diameter hooklink, with conditions looking good I can only guess that the swim may well have had too much pressure recently, it has certainly been fished quite a bit.

On Thursday I had another late afternoon river session in mind but this time for perch, I called in to see Leo on Wednesday evening and he mentioned that he had been out for a dawn perch session earlier in the week and that inspired me to do the same, a couple of hours fishing from dawn and then off to work. A 5.30 alarm call didn't go down very well with the wife but that's one of the dangers of this game I find, threats of me being relegated to the settee were made but my charm and guile won the day.

I was walking along the bank just as light began to fill the sky and what a lovely morning it was, unseasonably warm to the extent of leaving me sweating by the time I reached the swim even though I wasn't wearing a coat, to think that the last time I had fished the stretch only a couple or so weeks earlier it was minus six! My usual tactics were put into play straight away with the intention of making the most of the half light that the perch love so much, straight into the river went four droppers of red and white maggot followed by two of chopped worm followed by a big fat lobworm on a size four hook. The rig settled and was left static for a minute or two before being twitched back a few inches, left again, twitched again, left again but this time there was no following twitch because the tip started to pluck and knock as is typical of the start of a perch attack before pulling round confidently and I hit into a good fish. I was using my new Drennan rod and it behaved perfectly with enough give to avoid the hook pulling from that tough mouth but with an obvious amount of power in reserve. I could see the perch turning a foot or two below the surface several times before diving back into the depths and it didn't look a bad fish at all, enough to give my half awake mind a bit of a shake as I slipped the mesh beneath its deep flanks. It was a cracking looking perch as is usual for the river, a bit of fin damage but otherwise a stunner and a respectable 3lb 5oz in weight, lovely.

 
I popped her into my sling retainer and got the rig back out, this time the worm was hit as soon as it reached the river bed and I was in again, a perch of maybe 1 1/2lbs was landed. Another four fish between a pound and a pound and three quarters came to the bank in a short period of time before I bumped one off and the bites dried up at which point I took some pictures of the three pounder before slipping it back. Times was getting on and I could hear the rush hour traffic as I packed up and headed back to the van with my plan a success.

The day quickly became unbelievably warm for February with temperatures up to 16 degrees and bright sunshine, I was down to a t-shirt as I pruned roses and tidied borders with my mind on other matters, by mid afternoon the job was done and I was heading back to the river! This time I went for a different swim and carried out the usual baiting up routine with the expectation of having to wait for bites until the sun dropped from the sky. I had a couple of knocks on the first cast that didn't develop, the same happened on the next cast, on the third the tip kept knocking and then gave a more positive indication that I hit and the rod was pulled sharply down. If this was a perch it was huge, after a few seconds I realised that it couldn't be a perch and suspected a pike particularly when it shot at some speed out into the main ,river hanging there like a dead weight. Gaining some line I got the fish to within five yards of the bank before it once again rocketed off, this time under a nearside tree forcing me to submerge the rod tip and just hang on until it turned and came back towards me kicking up large tail patterns on the surface. Another minute or two and I was making some ground, I had seen the fish sub-surface but couldn't work out what it was, something didn't seem right, and then I got it up on the surface, a tench hooked in the tail, no wonder it ran me ragged! I could certainly say that the new rods was just what I needed, if it could cope with that then chub would be no problem. With that little episode sorted out and the fish returned a further downstream I got the dropper out again and fed the swim, a half hour of inactivity made me think and hope that the tench was a loner but I then hooked another, a bit bigger this time possibly pushing 5lb's. I like catching tench but I can't say that I'm keen on them when perching they must clean the baited area out in no time, nothing you can do about that of course except get on with it so once again I baited the swim. I had to wait until the light was fading before my next and final bite of the session which was the species I was after and a nice perch of just under 2lbs.

All in all an enjoyable days fishing but I was just about worn out, an early start, two round trips to the Derwent with work in between and I was about bushed by the time I finally parked my backside on the sofa with a hard earned beer.