Commercial Perch - Following new leads

Saturday 24th December

Its Christmas eve, all presents are bought, food is sorted and all the other little jobs that go hand in hand with Xmas are taken care of . Now i find myself with a free day what do you suppose i should do with it? ask a silly question!
The rivers looked well out of sorts for some Chub action which is what i really fancied doing so instead i decided to head to a small commercial fishery in Derbyshire which id been tipped off about. Its got form for producing some good Perch and although it had been originally brought to my attention over a year ago this was to be my first visit to the venue.
The weather was overcast, windy and cold as i stepped out of the car and it wasnt showing any signs of getting better so i headed for a spot where i would have my back to the wind. Id been told it was very good fishing in the margins but upon seeing the lake for the first time i was shocked to see that the majority of the reeds in the edge were completely out of the lake due to the water level being nearly 3feet down! A legacy of the ridiculously dry summer weve just had.

The water levels were well down

There was still one or two nice looking spots with reeds still in the water although subsequent plumbing revealed them to be very shallow . I ended up opting for an open water swim which at least appeared to have a  bit of depth to it and i reasoned that given the low levels and cold conditions, the fish would be as deep as they could get, thats what i hoped anyway.

It looked the part but it was only 18inches deep

I setup a tip rod, baited it with a Prawn and cast in . After about 10 minutes i recieved a real wrap around of a bite and i couldnt believe i missed it . Over the next hour the same thing happened another 4-5 times despite changing my hook size and even the bait size. It didnt matter anyhow because whilst i pondered what i was doing wrong, watery sunshine began to appear through the clouds and the bites dried up completely.

I switched to floatfished maggots and began to pick up  a few Roach and Gudgeon straight away. Some of the Roach were clonkers , a couple were certainly over the pound mark . I discovered id forgotten my scales when i decided to weigh one so i cant be sure on exact sizes.

After a while i decided to feederfish the maggots further out to see if there was any Perch in the deeper water . It turned out that there was! the little chap in the pic below perked up my confidence a bit but it was pretty short lived because his grandad refused to play ball and the Skimmers moved in .



All too soon it was time to pack up and even though the big Perch didnt show i certainly saw enough to make it worth a return visit . Merry Christmas everybody!