This is Pete. With a fish. Not just "any old fish", but the biggest perch we've had so far from the Grand Union Canal. He caught it last week, in a half hour dropshotting sortie from a swim we'd earmarked as having potential to produce a big one. Feast your eyes on the photo, take in the perch's plump rotundity, because it's the only fish you'll see in this blog entry!
Our trip to Norfolk had been planned for a few weeks. David had met a local expert while on holiday in Norfolk in the Autumn, they'd fished together and caught a couple of pike, and Pete and I arranged to join David on a return trip in January. What we hadn't planned for was a big storm, floods and a drop in temperature two days before we fished. When we arrived, the water was three feet up from its normal level and pushing through at a rapid rate of knots. The river was right on the cusp of "barely fishable", and we knew it wasn't going to be easy.
Rods were frequently arched in what looked like a pleasing battle curve, but was in reality just the latest branch or piece of debris deposited by the storm being drawn like a magnet to our treble hooks. There were two or three fishable spots, tiny slack areas where we could anchor a deadbait, and David did manage to provoke one run from a pike but, in keeping with the day, he missed it. At one point a whole tree floated imperiously down the centre of the river, and as well as the frequent discussions about moving swim or changing tactics, a certain "gallows humour" typified the day's banter. Winter fishing is not for the faint hearted.
From Leicester to Norfolk is a long drive in a car for a day's fishing- it's an even longer drive back if none of you have caught anything. However, hope springs eternal, and in a few days we'll be back on the bank, although perch from a "certain swim" on the canal, not pike from a far flung Norfolk river, will be the target. I suspect we'll be more successful on our own turf, too.
I'll let you know .....
