Back on the big perch hunt

Tuesday the 23rd of October

I was Trent bound again by mid afternoon after seeing more than enough of work for one day, we are well into the period when the gardens never really become dry and scrambling about on hands and knees in the muck and damp takes some motivation I can tell you, motivation that seems to diminish each year.

Ten minutes of dodging cowpats found me back in the area of my previous success but I had my eye on a new swim this time, once again an near bank tree gave plenty of cover and was hopefully home to some stripey sargeants. The feeder fished on the tip rod was going to be the approach but there was room to sneak out a second rod to be fished on the bobbin and Delkim too.

I whiled away a couple of biteless hours by recasting the feeders on a regular basis and swearing at the cormorants that seemed to be almost constantly in transit up and down the Trent valley, sticking two wings up at us anglers down below. I was just contemplating how many fish the birds had bagged from the river during the day compared to the anglers present when I was shaken from my depression by a bite on the alarm rod. It was only a little fish of not much more than a pound but it was one that the black plague had missed, as I felt compelled to inform the next passing pterodactyl.

I had not long slipped the fish back and settled down when the tip gave a couple of taps, almost always the preliminary to a good positive pull but it didn't happen. I left the bait static for another five minutes before recasting, no signs of damage were visible on the lobworm hookbait so it could have been a small fish. A couple of minutes later another couple of taps on the tip and then whack, round it went and up went the rod in my right hand. Have you ever noticed that when you are really in tune with a method that you act on auto pilot when a bite comes and quite often can't remember what happened before you struck? I've taken friends new to quiver tipping fishing before and tried to explain to them when to strike and when not to and I find it incredibly difficult it just becomes an in built instinct. That instinct had obviously worked its magic anyway as I was attached to something doing it's best to get stuck in a dead reedbed in front of me. A bit of pressure from directly above did the trick and up popped a lovely big perch that I soon scooped up. It turned out in fact to be the biggest perch that I had caught for some years at 3lb 8oz's and was in great condition.

That was my last bite of the session but who cares eh!



Thursday the 25th of October

I felt like a change of scenery after spending so much time on the Trent recently and so headed to the river Derwent after work, the river has good perch form and has previously produced a number of fish over 3lb's for me. Having joined a new club this season I now have access to maybe eight or ten miles of this lovely river, any section of which could throw up the stamp of fish that I am after.

I picked a swim that allowed me to lay on with a float close in which was a nice change after the methods I had been using on the big river but within minutes I found a problem, leaves. Leaves drifting, leaves on the bottom, newly fallen leaves, partly rotten leaves, but leaves everywhere, loads and loads of the flaming things that made fishing the spot a nightmare. I persevered for half an hour, kept reducing depth until I was just tripping the bottom and recast every few minutes but the underwater scene must have resembled a kaleidoscope of russet and gold, it was impossible.

I moved upstream by a couple of swims and started again, this area wasn't suitable for float fishing so I concentrated on the tip rod after depositing a good helping of maggot and worm into position via the dropper first. Two hours later one half hearted pull was all the sign of fish that I had seen and my times was up.

This perching lark is getting quite wearing now, I do find it quite full on constantly rushing to get to the river just to snatch a couple of hours bankside when the round trip takes the best part of an hour. When I'm there I am always very aware that the clock is ticking and that I have to keep on the ball to maximise my chances, relaxing it isn't but the rewards are there. I need to step back a little and take a deep breath, tell myself to slow down a bit and to remember that this should be fun.