An ambition achieved!

Today i realised probably one of my longest standing angling ambitions. For many years, even since before my Carp fishing days and certainly throughout my Specimen hunting era ive had an absolute burning desire to catch a monster Perch. Over those years I've caught many good Perch, plenty of three pounders and countless twos but a true leviathan, a fish of over four pounds has always eluded me.
I have come close on a couple of memorable occasions in the past including one time on the river Ouse when I lost a Perch which resembled a stripey football at the net and another time whilst lure fishing on the Trent when the jack that I was bullying suddenly turned out to be a Goliath perch which promptly threw the hook and left me with that horrible sick feeling that only happens when you lose something special.
Today was like any normal fishing day apart from not being able to fish where I really wanted due to high and dirty water conditions. Rather than writing another day off I decided to stay local where water conditions were a little more conducive to catching a Perch or two. I found a nice swim with a small sidestream carrying clear water into the main river and got setup. After a couple of hours on the quivertip with nothing more than a couple of gentle knocks to show for my efforts I decided to setup a float rig to lay on with a worm next to some reeds to my left.
Within minutes and without any warning the float slid away and I struck into a heavy fish. To start with it kept deep, often going on short powerful runs, and I initially thought it might be a good Chub. I caught a glimpse of a deep stripey flank down in the murk and immediately knew then that it was a large Perch, a very large Perch! Somehow it found a hidden snag and I could feel my line grating through it really badly, I prayed that everything would hold together.  Suddenly my line pinged free of whatever it was caught on and the Perch hit the surface, I quickly grabbed my net and scooped it out before it had chance to make any more lunges for freedom.
The net felt unusually heavy and I peeled back the mesh to reveal my prize. Before me lay the biggest Perch I'd ever seen and I knew straight away that I'd finally done a four pounder. It proved to be comfortable four as well as the needle settled on 4lb8oz, my mind was well and truly blown away!

4lb8oz, The fish of my dreams

Collecting for the campaign .........

Now the cooler weather is upon us, my plan for the coming weeks is to concentrate wherever possible on catching some hefty Perch. A good supply of worms is a must for times like this so a trip to the local playing fields was the order of the day. Phil joined me and we mustve looked like a right pair of pillocks crawling about in the wet grass carefully scanning the ground with our head torches occasionally shouting about stubborn ones and six inchers! I was fully expecting to see a police car pull up at any minute to enquire as to what the hell we were doing!
Our efforts werent in vain though and after around 3/4 of an hour or so we both had getting on for 100 decent lobworms apiece, a good nights work indeed. Free bait is awesome i just hope i can put it to good use!

Still Carping on

Since my last blog update my fishing has been a little stifled due to the usual work commitments and a weekend away to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary .  I've not been sat on my laurels though fishingwise and during my time off I've managed to acquire an exciting new ticket with some great potential. I had my first chance to have a really good look at the water on Saturday and there are some seriously mouth watering swims to choose from, unfortunately the place was booked for a match on Sunday so I guess I'll have to wait another week before I can get stuck in.

My options for Sundays session weren't great, cold and bright conditions were forecast and with the rivers carrying a bit of colour and extra water I wasn't too keen. In the end, seeing as my Carp gear was still ready to go from when I last used it I decided to head back down to the same club lake as before.

Upon my arrival I was a little disappointed to find my fancied area already occupied. The two lads sat there though had nothing to report so I headed further around the pool hopeful of finding some fish. Nothing was obvious and although the lake was enshrouded in mist the sun was already starting to burn it away so I headed for a shallow area. I reasoned that the forecast bright sunshine would hopefully encourage the carp to feed in the shallows later in the day, it was a total gamble but would it pay off?

An hour or so into the session and nothing had shown whatsoever until I heard an alarm screech and looked up the lake to see one of the other two lads  landing a small Carp. A good sign that something was moving at least.  Shortly afterwards I was joined by Phil who set up in the deep water to my right.

The sun was soon up to full strength and and it started to get pretty warm, the Carp obviously liked it aswell because there was a couple of shows out in the middle of the lake . They were miles from where I was fishing but it did wonders for the confidence which increased further when I received a hefty liner on my right hander at around lunchtime.

By the time mid afternoon came around the Delkims still remained silent and that all important confidence was fast diminishing. A few other anglers had turned up, blanked and gone home again over the course of the day and eventually just Phil and I remained. We too were contemplating packing up when suddenly my left hander signalled a fast take. The fish put up a great account of itself and i was pleased when it turned out to be one of the lakes Commons, a nice mid-double. It finished the session off nicely and soon after the photos i headed for home.