A brace of crackers

My last blog post is going to be a hard one to top but nevertheless I've still been out a few times since trying my best to catch something else worthwhile. I tried the same swim again twice in the hope of maybe catching another lump but the conditions were completely different and a blank was inevitable. I've fished the river for many years and never seen or heard of anything that size being caught before so I guess I'd have to be exceptionally lucky to get another unless the same fish pops up again. I'm not into chasing repeat captures though so for my most recent session I decided to look elsewhere.  Fortunately the water levels and colour  had receded on my other river venue and things had fallen right for me to fish a couple of Swims I had earmarked from some livebaiting trips a few weeks ago.
I arrived around mid afternoon and setup in my second choice swim as there was a Barbel angler in my most fancied spot. Barbel and Big Perch don't normally share a love of the same spots but there is a lovely snaggy slack along the margin where I caught a 3lb stripey the other week and it looked good for another but for now that swim would have to wait. My chosen swim was a new one to me a short distance downstream and here the water was a bit steadier and was almost still down the edge to my right with a small bush sticking out over the water but not in it. I decide to lay on with a worm next to the bush in around four feet of water.
The dead leaves which had fallen off the trees in recent weeks were proving to be a proper pain in the backside and I was having to recast regularly to make sure I hadn't picked up any on the hook as the worm tried to bury itself in the bottom debris. After a couple of inactive hours I was starting to have the usual doubts about the spot but I knew the best time was fast approaching so I decided to stay put.   The light was showing its first signs of fading when my float began to register a bit of interest. A couple of slight knocks had my hand hovering over the rod butt and I was well ready by the time the float slid away. Solid resistance meant a good Perch was hooked and sure enough I soon netted a real clonker. At a glance I almost thought I'd done it again with a 4 but as soon as I picked up the fish to unhook it i knew it wasnt quite in the same league. Last weeks  4lber was around four inches thick across its back and although this fish  had a similar length it was noticeably thinner girthwise. At 3lb7oz it was a fantastic fish though and I was very pleased indeed!

I returned the fish a few pegs downstream and cast back in, it was getting dark fast and I was struggling to see my float. In fact I was really struggling and then the penny dropped, the float wasn't even there! I lifted the rod and bent into what felt like another good Perch. I netted it and was pleased to see it was another cracker and although a shorter, stockier fish its colours were very vivid. It went 3lb6oz on the scales and completed the biggest brace of Perch I've ever caught. This years Perch Campaign couldn't have got off to a better start, how much longer will my luck hold out?

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.

A trip to the dark side

Seeing as I haven't done any blogging for ages I thought I'd better put something on otherwise it will be getting on for a full month between updates! To be honest I've not done a great deal of fishing lately mainly due to working lots of overtime. I did have a couple more perching trips after my last blog update but other than catching a couple of small ones they were fairly uneventful.

A couple of weekends ago I played host to the lads of the Milton Keynes specimen group who had booked one of our club stretches of the trent for a fish-in. After meeting up with them and giving them a quick tour they seemed very taken with the stretch and certainly  didn't waste any time setting up. Within the first hour Dickie brigden had landed a lovely Barbel of 11.14 which was a great weight off my shoulders after telling the lads how great the stretch was! The rest of the weekend passed off brilliantly with more double figure barbel and plenty of other fish to keep the lads occupied, they had a fantastic time by all accounts and I'm so chuffed that I was able to contribute to it in my own small way.

Just lately I've had a real hankering to go Carp fishing, don't ask me why, it's just a sudden urge I've had. In fact it's been more of an urge than I originally anticipated because I suddenly found myself in the tackle shop last week handing over a substantial chunk of cash for some new Carp rods! It's unbelievable what a couple of episodes of Carp crew and Thinking tackle can lure you into!

Anyway, armed with my new gear I headed to one of our club lakes in a bid to scratch the itch. The lake in question is around 3 acres and contains around 200 carp to low twenties so it's not overly difficult but it can be tricky on occasions due to the underwater topography and very clear water.
I was pleased to find I had the lake to myself upon my arrival and it didn't take me long to see a few fish moving about. I was quite surprised to see them so active as the weather had turned pretty chilly over the previous few days and we'd even had a couple of light frosts . I quickly set up in a swim which gave me a couple of good margin spots to cast to in the area the fish were showing. A couple of bags filled with 10mm boilies and a few halibut pellets were soon in position and I sat back to await events.

Fish continued to show but they were now further out and after an hour of total inactivity I was starting to convince myself I was fishing in too shallow water for the conditions. I was just contemplating a recast when suddenly my left hander buckled around and I found myself doing battle with what felt like a decent fish. After a feisty battle in the deep water it turned out to be smaller than I thought at around 15lb but it was a nice way to christen the new rods.

I took the opportunity to recast my right hand rod to where the fish were showing and I placed the left hander back where I'd just caught from. At this point another club bailiff came round and we'd been stood there talking for around 45mins when I received a blistering take on the right hander. This one was slightly smaller than the first but I was well pleased because I was fishing a new rig and it seemed to be working very well indeed.

Shortly after that fish the weather closed and it began to rain . Almost as soon as the rain started the fish stopped showing and i had the feeling id had all the action i was going to get for the day. Three hours later the feeling proved right and the temptation of a nice hot Sunday dinner back home was too much to resist. I emerged from my trip to the dark side fairly unscathed, maybe this Carp fishing lark isnt so bad after all . I wont be making a habit of it though!

Late summer Perching

With the August bank holiday upon us it means that we now find ourselves on the cusp of autumn and the great fishing it brings with it. With this in mind I decided to try some new perch swims out in preparation for the colder months. I've had my eye on some swims for a while but never got round to giving them a bash so, after finding myself with a free morning on Sunday, I headed out there.
We'd had a lot of rain in previous days but the river looked to be in fine form, carrying a couple of inches with a slight tinge of colour. Rain had threatened my whole journey over there and once I got out of the car and halfway across the field it decided to hammer it down, great start!
Livebaiting was to be my tactic for the day and it didn't take me long at all to catch a few dace and bleak for bait.  In fact I was quite surprised that I was getting a bite a chuck as the river has suffered badly through cormorant predation in recent times yet today it was like fish soup, they were everywhere. A float-paternostered bleak was soon bobbing about in the margin to my right and after half an hour of inactivity I was starting to think the Perch weren't home.
Suddenly the float shot under and stayed under and my strike met with solid resistance, straight away I knew it was a Pike. Sure enough after much tailwalking a lively jack of around 5lb was quickly unhooked and returned a few pegs downstream. That pike must've been putting the Perch off because not long after I received another take which proved to be a nice stripey of 2lb6oz which pulled every bit as hard as the Pike.

2lb6oz, a fine start

The swim went a bit dead after that so I moved a few pegs downstream. Within minutes of casting I started to get a bit of interest and soon enough another jack, this one about 3lb was on the mat. Once again it was as if the Perch were holding back from the Pike and almost straight away upon recasting I hit a nice one of 2lb4oz.
After that things slowed up and I noticed that the river had risen around three inches since my arrival. It was also getting pretty coloured up and I assumed that the previous nights rain must've finally started to filter downstream. I busied myself catching bits whilst contemplating packing up. experience told me that the Perch don't like coloured water much in this river and this was manifesting itself in the total lack of any further action on the paternoster.
As I started to slowly get a few bits of kit together in preparation I received a take on the livebait. A strike met with resistance which suddenly went slack amidst a big swirl on the surface. I reeled to find that the bait had masked the hookpoint hence no hookup, cursing my luck I put a fresh bleak on and dropped it back in. Immediately there was a large swirl where the bait hit the water and I found myself connected to a powerful fish. After a quick tussle I was pleased to see a bucket mouthed head pop up off the end of the waiting net followed by a large spikey dorsal fin, it looked a good perch. On the bank it had the length of a monster but no belly on it, I was still most chuffed to record a weight of 3lb4oz though. I'd like to catch that fish around March time as it would be a new PB for sure! After that I packed up happy with a good mornings sport, even more so that I'd caught from a couple of new spots.

3lb4oz, a future monster?

Club lake Cats - another PB

My main trip this weekend came about due a to a conversation i had with Phil Smith whilst fishing the Tench lake a couple of months ago. We were talking Catfish and with Phil having such great success on Orchid lakes club lake in recent months we decided to arrange a trip down there. A motley crew in the shape of myself, Phil, Rob Thompson and Merv Wilkinson was eventually assembled and on Sunday we all met up in the carpark at Orchid lakes.
Orchid lake is very well known in Carp fishing circles and has been producing monster carp for many years but in recent times its smaller brother next door, the club lake, has really started to come into its own due to the monster Catfish which reside in there. Stocked around 15 years ago with a handful of small Cats they have really flourished in there and now fish to well over 50lb are available for the price of a day ticket.
We met Marsh, the lakes owner in the clubhouse and after a quick brew we ferried our gear around to the pool. There was a few other anglers already fishing but most were packing up later in the afternoon which would leave the entire main body of the lake available to the four of us. A quick coin toss chose our swims for us and soon enough we were getting set up.

A view of our swims, mine was the one in the right foreground

We were down for 48hrs and as usual i had brought way too much gear with me and it seemed to take forever to sort everything out in the sweltering afternoon heat.  I was hoping to do battle with some leviathans and had geared up accordingly, 18lb mainline, 85lb hooklinks and size 2/0 hooks were the order of the day. Baitwise we had a large selection between us in the form of luncheon meat, halibut pellets, squid, mackerel and worms, how could any self respecting moggy resist!

The rigs werent shy........

As dusk arrived the lake came alive and fish seemed to showing everywhere, most were from Carp but wishful thinking had me convinced that some of the bigger splashes were caused by Cats striking at the numerous Rudd on the surface.

Nothing happened until dark when Merv struck into a heavy fish, it gave him the proper runaround going through both Phil and Robs lines before it was eventually netted. The scales settled on a clonking 39lb2oz and Merv was over the moon as were the rest of us, we all returned to our bivvies for the night with our confidence sky high.

After seeing Mervs fish on the bank i was buzzing and couldnt sleep at all, the heavy sounding splashes from out in the lake didnt help matters either! At around midnight the water just in front of my rod tips erupted as something rolled very close in. I didnt need any more prompting and quickly repositioned a bait just out in front of me.

As the early hours slipped by i could finally feel myself slipping into a slumber but it wasnt to last long as suddenly my baitrunner went into meltdown on the repositioned rod! As i threw myself out of my sleeping bag and down the bank to my rod It suddenly occurred to me what might have picked my bait up and i have to say i was actually a little bit frightened of what awaited me in the coming moments!

I didnt have time to think anymore and i picked up the rod, disengaged the baitrunner and heaved into the fish to set the hook. It was like striking into a moving car and the rod immediately buckled over alarmingly. Rob heard the commotion and came over to assist, the fish at this point was very much in control. Whenever it wanted to go i had no choice but let it, all i could do was hold on keeping the rod well bent until hopefully it began to tire.  Eventually i could feel it relenting and i began to gain line slowly but surely and soon enough i had one hell of a Catfish wallowing in the landing net.

After unhooking it we hoisted it up on the scales and i was blown away to see the needle fly past the 40lb mark and settle on a cracking 43lb12oz, my old PB was blown out of the water!

43lb12oz

The photo session was something of an ordeal and one ill never forget. Big fish equals lots of slime, couple that with one of the most difficult species of fish on the planet to hold up for the camera (especially at 3am in the morning) and you get a recipe for a right old mess!

Good job i had a change of clothes!

After returning it and getting changed i lay there on my bedchair in a state of happy shock, drinking in the moment of having just landed my heaviest fish of all time, absolute magic!

The rest of the session passed completely uneventfully for myself but i couldnt have cared less, id caught what i went there for and it was mission accomplished as far as i was concerned. The following night i slept soundly all night and didnt actually get out of bed till around nine the following morning. Merv had lost one in the night and Phil had landed a 22lber. Mine and Robs rods had stayed silent.

Many thanks go out to Phil for setting the whole thing up and to Marsh for his hospitality, that was certainly a session to remember!