A whole month had passed since the session that marked the start of my perch campaign, the usual combination of work and domestic commitments preventing an earlier return to the bank to resume the quest. I have never previously started my stripy chasing activities as early as late August, but this year impatience got the better of me and my desire for perch caused me to take early leave of the more traditional species of summer and turn my attention to the fish that are never far from my dreams. The intervening weeks had seen a change in the scenery, with some of the green leaves of August beginning their metamorphosis into the russets, golds and scarlets of Autumn on the trees that stand sentinel-like behind the lake, but most still retained their summer livery. The sun burned only slightly weaker in the sky than on my last visit, and despite being the last week of September the temperature was also yet to properly adjust in line with the seasonal transition. Barely Autumn, but no longer summer, a liminal moment in the inexorable cycle of the seasons. It was shortly after midday that I arrived at the pond with my friend Dave and began the necessary process of plumbing the depth at the edge of the reeds less than a rod's length from the bank. There are big perch in this small lake, and they cruise its margins, making use of the available cover and feasting on small fish and the American Signal crayfish population that has colonised the lake's bed.
I delicately dropped my small perch bob next to some reeds just feet from where I was sat, slightly repositioning the bait every quarter of an hour, each relocation of just a few inches pregnant with possibility. Eyes fixed on the float, whole body alert to its every trembling, the waiting game had begun. Non angling friends who suppose that I fish to "pass the time of day" have failed to understand that I have no wish for the time to pass, but rather wish that I had more time, and if such a thing were possible I could quite happily spend an entire eternity by the side of a pond squinting at a float and wishing into into submersion.
I didn't have to wait long for the first few perch to make the trip to the bank, with a brief flurry of small perch who didn't allow their modest size to get in the way of their eating ambitions, each greedily engulfing the whole prawn hookbait. After a handful of pugnacious hand-sized perch had surrendered themselves to me things quitened down, and it was about an hour before my first respectably sized fish made an appearance, a rather splendid hard fighting specimen of about a pound and a quarter.
Dave, fishing to my left, had yet to catch a fish (although by now we had both landed several unwelcome crayfish who had displayed a penchant for prawns), but when the first fish succumbed to the allure of his bait it turned out to be a magnificent striped beast that tipped the scales to 2lb 2oz after a tenacious tussle.
As is frequently the case the pond was in one of its awkward sulky moods, with the fish feeding in short bursts between lengthy periods of inactivity. I and my small bunch of angling companions have enjoyed a pleasing level of success over the last three years, with some fine perch landed, but these fish demand to be worked for and don't give themselves up easily. Matt, fishing the opposite bank had been fishing since 8am, catching three nice perch around the pound and a half mark during the morning (pictures of which he'd gleefully WhatsApped to my phone while I was slaving away at my laptop) but he was enduring a quiet afternoon untroubled by the perch he was seeking. My next perch was my biggest of the day, just an ounce lighter than Dave's fish, registering a creditable 2lb 1oz on my digital scales. At one stage the fish had me snagged in the reeds for a few seconds (which felt like an age), but easing off the pressure and then changing the angle of attack saw the fish free itself as the split cane rod tip bounced and bucked, transmitting the sensation through its length so that the corks in my hand felt alive.
Dave had added a few more very small perch with "eyes bigger than their bellies" and Matt had landed a fine bonus carp, a handsome linear mirror just shy of double figures, when my small perch bob disappeared for the final time. Another spirited tussle resulted in a perch that I estimated to be about a pound and three quarters gracing my net and bringing to a close a challenging but ultimately successful afternoon's perching.
Of all the fish that swim in British waters, the perch is my favourite by far and any time spent in their pursuit is a pleasure. The first fish I ever caught was a perch, and I have been fortunate in recent years to capture a good number of them to a size that my boyhood self would have thought impossible, but for me the act of fishing for them is just as satisfying as their actual capture, as are the methods I choose to employ while chasing them. I love the iconic shape of the brightly painted round bodied perch bob floats under which my baits are suspended, the vintage rods and reels that are my weapons of choice, and the ambience and sense of mystery that surrounds a good perch lake. For as long as I'm fit and able and for as many years as the good Lord spares me, I strongly suspect that perch will remain my number one quarry and will continue to be the inspiration for much of my idle dreaming.
