Perch a plenty, but it's "no Trent Park"

 

"You're hoping to find a new Trent Park, aren't you?" said the voice on the other end of the phone. Sometimes my brother is uncannily perceptive, but then we've known each other for over 40 years and fished together for over 30. For 3 years I lived in North London, and my brother at the time was in Essex and we used to lure fish a Country Park near Southgate called Trent Park. A small, pretty lake it was home to hoards of voracious jack pike who liked nothing better than to chase a lure. It was "fun fishing" at its most fun-like, a place where it was harder to blank than to catch, and so when I informed my brother that I'd heard there were some pike in a small (probably about 2 acre) pond studded with lilly pads in a Country Park near my Leicester home it was a natural inference for him to draw. John Gierach once wrote an essay about a small stream near his home entitled "I'd fish anyone's St Vrain" - I'd fish anyone's Trent Park.

 

I arrived at the lake at about 9:30am, and for an hour flung a range of plugs (soft plastics, shallow divers, deep divers and jointed efforts) into the pond, but without any follows, splashes or signs of any esox related interest. To be fair, my research had only produced tentative answers; the (non-fishing) Country park staff had informed me that there were pike in the Lilly Pond, but they didn't know how many, or how big. Fortunately, I had a "plan B".

 

Behind the Country Park is a stretch of canal that I've perch fished on several occasions, and so an hour in to the session, and with the autumnal day turning distinctly "summery", I decided to "cut my losses" and spend a couple of hours spinning on the canal. Fortunately, I'd brought along a few small spinners as a contingency.

 

After an inauspicious start (which involved losing my favourite Rublex Ondex), and a fishless half hour, I decided to concentrate on bridges (my favourite spots for perch fishing on canals), and on my first cast at the first bridge I caught my first perch, a lively fellow that took a liking to a fluo coloured Mepps Aglia.

 Things, were looking up. Two more perch followed from the same swim before my Mepps Aglia went the same way as the Ondex, snagged on some unseen debris.

 I moved to another bridge about a quarter of a mile away, and rapidly caught another three perch, this time on a Mepps Black Fury.

 

 

 

 

 The canal here is not the typical town centre cliché (graffiti daubed concrete, shopping trollies and random bank walking drug users), but is an attractive rural setting, and if golf is a "good walk ruined", spinning for perch on this stretch of canal is a "good walk enhanced". I fished on, watched by a herd of cows on the far bank, before returning to the first bridge.
With 6 perch on the bank, I decided to walk back to the original bridge for a few last casts before heading for home. The Black Fury continued to find favour with the perch, and another 4 were added to bring the day's total to a pleasing 10 fish. Although none of the perch were big, and despite the fact that I could probably have caught 3 or 4 times as many in the timeframe if I'd used maggots and a pole or waggler, the fact is spinning for perch is beyond doubt the most enjoyable way to fish for this plucky and prettiest of British fish.

 

A pleasant day's fishing, but the search for the "new Trent Park" continues ...

 

 

A pike from "back in the day" from Trent Park.



Carp taking candy from kids

If the ability to experiment, and- in business parlance- "think outside the box" is an essential quality for carp fishing excellence, then my 10 year old nephew is well on the way to being an excellent carp angler.

 

On a recent session, with three or four carp already banked, he decided to abandon his standard "fake corn" and method rig, and to hair rig one of the wine gums he'd been rotting his teeth with all morning. The result, was this pretty mirror.

 

Of course, novel baits are nothing new in the world of carp angling. Some of us (like me and his Dad) are old enough o remember getting our own bait ingredients from the catalogues of Rod Hutchinson and Duncan Kay and rolling homemade boilies, and now that it's almost de rigeur in the summer to catch carp on bits of coloured foam or zig bugs, then nothing should surprise us really, but "fair play" to the kid for his experimental approach.

 

Anyway, I'm off to the shops to buy some Fruit pastilles and mini marshmallows .... I'm thinking that the marshmallow fished "snowman" style with the fruit pastille might create a nicely critically balanced effect. I would try "M&M's" but nuts are banned on my lake ...... it's all "food for thought."

Farewell to all that ....

Soon the lake known to regular readers of this blog as "The Estate Lake" will be no more. It's not quite disappearing into total oblivion, but, with its venerable old trees cut down it will begin a new, characterless and tamed incarnation as the "focal feature" in an estate of soul-less new build homes. Greedy property developers and a spineless council who kept meekly acquiescing to every new demand the avaricious developers proposed are to blame for the lake's impending demise.

 

Anyway, enough spleen venting, this evening my son and I joined up with Roger and his two sons for one "last hurrah" on the Estate Lake. To be truthful, the lake has been somewhat "out of sorts" all this season, and hasn't been as beneficent as it once was in its serving up of crucians (the lake's main attraction) to anglers in recent weeks. Perhaps, well aware of its fate, the lake itself has been sulking.

 

My son opted to fish with a waggler (his favourite method), while I and Roger's two sons fished with poles. Initially, Roger nobly just acted as chief untangler, disgorger of hooks and "general gopher" for his lads, although as the session wore on he set up a pole and joined the fray with the rather reluctant fish.

 

 

The fishing was slow, the weather inclement, with several fierce showers, and the catching of fish proved to be challenging. We all caught, although not prolifically. I managed 15 fish (all roach and rudd), Roger had half a dozen, including one reasonable perch, and the boys really struggled, with just 5 fish between them, although, thankfully, none of them blanked.

 

 

And so another lake is consigned to the "memories" corner of my mind, a pleasant "field of dreams" for two seasons, in which both I and my son several times came close to our hoped-for two pound crucian without ever realising the ambition.
 ..... and so, as Summer turns to Autumn, my thoughts turn from poles, whips, wagglers and crucians to plugs, spinners and deadbaits ..... soon it'll be October, and the predators are calling ....