A spring in my step for perch

Sometimes a thing is enough of a pleasure to make it worth prolonging, and so I arrived at the not-so-difficult decision that this year I would extend my perch fishing to the end of April, and forgo my usual spring and summer fishing until the commencement of the merry month of May. In effect, this equates to furthering my serious pursuit of specimen perch by four weeks and postponing the period when my fishing becomes a far more casual affair which, in all candour, is little more than an exercise in enjoying the sunshine and surroundings while messing about catching small carp during the warmer months. This casual approach to angling holds sway until Autumn comes around and my addiction to all things perch is resumed in earnest. 

I had also recently come into ownership of some lovely handmade perch bobs, made specifically for me by a skilled craftsman, each one a lovely little object in porcupine quill and cork, with tiny little perch decals decorating the smooth cork bodies and was eager to give one of them its maiden outing.

Joining me at the perch pond was my friend John from Cambridgeshire, who is not only a highly competent angler (and onetime Chairman of The Perchfishers) but is also the only fisherman I know who rivals Bob Mortimer in his ongoing and unsuccessful battle with the effects of gravity while fishing. On the only two occasions that John has netted pike for me (once on the Fens and once on the Trent) he has ended up sliding inelegantly down the bank towards the river on his backside still gripping the landing net tightly while wearing a look of mild panic on his face! 

As ever, my approach was simplicity itself. The small perch bob was lowered next to near bank cover, and red maggots and bits of broken up prawn where constantly drip fed into the swim. Bait was the ubiquitous prawn, impaled on a barbless size 12 hook. The air temperature was mild and Spring-like, but the sky overhead was graphite grey and pregnant with threat.

After about an hour, and following a couple of missed bites, a better timed strike saw me connected to what was clearly not only an angry perch, but also a not insubstantial one, and after a couple of minutes of two and fro-ing the fish came round to my way of thinking and surrendered to the waiting landing net. The scales registered a weight of 2lb 1oz, and after the obligatory photo shoot the fish was returned to her watery home, and with a flick of the tail was gone.

I recast, resumed regular loose feeding, and returned my attention to my float. An hour passed before I was once again attached to a fish, another fine striped specimen, not as large as the first of the day, and one which, if weighed, would probably have pulled the scales down to somewhere around the pound and a half mark.

Meanwhile, on the far bank John was having less luck, with both his legered prawn and float fished lobworm being resolutely ignored by the perch. He had, however, landed a good sized ide and a procession of unwelcome crayfish.

As the clock approached midday I once again found myself tussling with a determined striped protagonist, which gave a good account of itself before reluctantly joining me on the bank, where it turned out to be my second two pounder of the day, weighing in at exactly 2 pounds. 

As morning morphed into afternoon, the still sunless and dismal sky turned its attention to making good on its earlier threat, initially persistent rain gaining in confidence as the afternoon wore on until it displayed all of the malice that sent Noah scuttling for the ark in the day's of mankind's infancy. There was to be no respite from the diluvium deluge, and any further fish would clearly be earned at the expense of a soaking. Umbrellas were raised, shoulders hunched against the elements, and John and I continued to will our floats into disappearance. 

John eventually managed to connect with the target species, with a perch of about a pound taking a fancy to his link legered prawn. I had by now changed from my perch bob and prawn approach and had fined down to a light dart style float and double red maggot on a size 18, which accounted for my final fish of the day, a little striped sergeant that looked to be somewhere around a pound and a half in size.

By mid afternoon, with the temperature having dropped dramatically, we decided that our angling virtue had been well and truly established by our persistence in persevering in the face of the unrelenting downpour, and as we packed away steam rose from our waterproofs as the rain continued to fall unabated. Things that come easily rarely convey much in the way of satisfaction, but today's brace of two pounders had been hard won in testing conditions, and so the pleasure of John's company and the gratification of knowing that piscatorial success had been achieved in conditions that were less than hospitable, combined to create a feeling of wellbeing that lasted the entirety of my homeward journey. (although, in all honesty, I suspect the car's heater was also a significant factor in adding to the sense of warm glow and contentment that accompanied me  on the drive home.) 

The plan is for one more assault on the perch before my attention turns to the more traditional species of spring and summer. Would it be greedy to wish for just one more two pounder?

A perch before lunchtime

Many of the best things to happen to me have been unscheduled, unplanned and unexpected. Sadly, the passage of time and busyness of adult life often mitigate against the spontaneous, to the detriment of wellbeing, as life becomes increasingly squeezed into Google calendars, spreadsheets and diary commitments. However, my life has not yet quite become entirely devoid of the pleasure of "last minute decisions", and as the days drew towards the weekend a previously unforeseen opportunity to spend Saturday morning fishing opened up, resulting in me on a whim contacting David and Roger and planning to spend a few hours in pursuit of perch at the club lake.

The sky was an insipid shade of grey, misty, overcast and mildly threatening as I threaded the line through the rings of the old glass fibre rod, enjoying the distinctive noise of the line being pulled from the ratchet of the centrepin, the only sound to rival that of the avian melody being struck up the birds who were busy welcoming the new day in song.

With the depth plumbed and all of the preliminaries sorted, I dropped my hook, baited with double red maggot, into the lake less than a rod length out and settled down to watch my float, while regularly introducing small handfuls of maggots into the swim. After half an hour of staring at a motionless float, the 3BB sarkandas reed waggler wobbled twice, dipped and submerged. A swift upward motion of the rod found me attached to my intended quarry and  after a short tussle a reasonable perch was being drawn over the rim of the net. A handsome fish, bristling with all the usual bravado and swagger common to its species but at around a pound in weight it was by no means a monster and so after an admiring glance and a quick photo it was time to return the fish to its watery home and recast in hopes of a larger specimen.

As the morning drew on the wind gained strength, at times whipping the lake's surface into waves which lapped against the bank and caused the float's orange tip to rhythmically rise and fall as it rode the peaks and troughs. Bites were proving hard to come by with only the occasional roach or small carp gate-crashing the party intended for perch before David found himself playing a better quality striped protagonist to the net. In terms of size his fish might very well have been the twin of my earlier capture and restored our belief that, just possibly, for one of us the hoped for two pounder might yet make an appearance.

 

Roger had been persevering with prawn as his hook bait in the hope of avoiding small fish and tempting a specimen, but while the prawns had succeeded in his avoiding the small fish they had similarly been ignored by their larger brethren, prompting Roger to change his bait to red maggot which resulted in him catching the smallest perch of the day, a wriggly little juvenile which would have been dwarfed had it been placed in a tea strainer let alone a landing net!

Eventually patience and persistence in the face of hostile weather were rewarded when David found himself tangling with what was clearly a much more substantial adversary which turned out to be a fine perch that pleasingly took the scales past the magic 2 pound mark to rest at a satisfying 2 pounds and 2 ounces.

The wind continued its onslaught on the three anglers, as we hunched our shoulders against its wrath, and bites continued to be at a premium. The last word of the day was had by another rogue carp which took a liking to the maggots presented on my final cast, putting a good bend in the vintage glass fibre avon rod I was deploying and ploughing around the swim with dogged determination before finally succumbing and stoically resigning itself to the net.

By midday we were all three of us packed up and bidding farewell to one another and to the lake until the next time. It had been a gruelling morning's fishing in grim conditions, but three decent perch felt like a good result, and the larger of David's brace a minor triumph. To date, my own record since Christmas is four sessions fished and six perch over a pound landed, two of which broke the 2 pound mark, but every one of those fish has been hard earned in the face of adversity and less than clement conditions. Fishing in the winter months brings its own challenges and has an attritional quality, but for all that I'd rather be by a lakeside, nose and eyes streaming in response to the cold than anywhere else. Cold weather angling is for me both an affliction and an addiction, but one from which I seek no refuge nor wish to be rehabilitated from. After all, there are worse things....