Even though, I'm not the greatest lure fisher in the world, Chester or even my house probably(!), there is something about the little rascals that keeps me buying them like Imelda Marcos with shoes.
Living on the Dee is like torture, given I just can't get to grips with it after over 30 years of trying and a quick surf through Google can show plenty of 20lb plus pike and some great perch. This boy seems to be pretty good at finding them though:-
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.401143053297773.96392.283508965061183&type=3
I'm reliably informed that a 5lb perch has come out of the City Centre stretch which is where I live so I've been researching the best trolling lures for perch for literally weeks now and they've arrived from various far flung parts of the world at great expense.
A Kwikfish K15 banana shaped plug in black and green apparently has an action which is "Irresistible" to big stripeys so it's off for a row before work with this bad boy trailing behind. Must confess that the doubts were starting to kick in as I passed the water treatment works 1.5 miles upstream but sure enough when dragging the lure under an overhanging tree off goes the ratchet.
My PB perch is only 1lb 4oz so any decent fish stands a chance of getting me a PB. Excitement short lived though as a feisty but relatively small (0.75lb) perch is netted. Nothing more on the way back down the river but plenty of options to try in the coming weeks if the levels stay sensible.
Mr Fish
Showing posts with label Perch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Perch. Show all posts
03/09/2010
Big Perch Preparation
There doesn’t seem to be many books available regarding specimen perch fishing and so I’ve downloaded everything I can find of relevance from the net and hacked through numerous articles and blog discussions.
There are some really detailed articles out there in the ether, particularly by a chap called Steve Burke which are great and Bob Robert’s website is always a good source of advice and direction for targeting specific species. I’m not so sure though about the guy who wants me to attract all the silver fish in the river but putting a week’s worth of Hovis breadcrumbs in and then somehow work double red maggot from the centre of these vast shoals outwards until I contact a 3lb perch….there must be an easier way!!
There’s quite a bit of contradictory advice when targeting fish of say 2lbs plus, as regards the best bait, tactics and time of year to fish, but they all seem to agree that this is a tough month to find shoals of big perch because they can be very spread out. I was going to target some very deep slacks on the River Dee with jigs but most articles say I’m bonkers because these are the areas they will avoid in summer because of low oxygen and limited supply of bait fish….rats, perhaps I should be barbel fishing this time of the year!
In my usual stubborn way, I’m going to give it a go anyway because my PB is not too demanding at 1 lb 4oz from 17 years ago and I can troll/cast past/to features in the river, as I make my way to the big holes. I’ve therefore loaded a small Shimano spinning reel with 5 kilo Power Pro braid and bought a selection of jelly jigs and a drop-shot rig from Harris Angling ready to go for it. The plan will be to troll some small Rapalas along the tree lines in shallower water and then drop-shot the deeper sections. If this fails, I’ve also bought some small livebait sliders and will get some gudgeon and small roach on the case if required.
I’m hoping to get the boat out there tomorrow once I rivet some home made trolling rests to the gunwales on the boat.
Fingers crossed for a result.
Mr Fish
There are some really detailed articles out there in the ether, particularly by a chap called Steve Burke which are great and Bob Robert’s website is always a good source of advice and direction for targeting specific species. I’m not so sure though about the guy who wants me to attract all the silver fish in the river but putting a week’s worth of Hovis breadcrumbs in and then somehow work double red maggot from the centre of these vast shoals outwards until I contact a 3lb perch….there must be an easier way!!
There’s quite a bit of contradictory advice when targeting fish of say 2lbs plus, as regards the best bait, tactics and time of year to fish, but they all seem to agree that this is a tough month to find shoals of big perch because they can be very spread out. I was going to target some very deep slacks on the River Dee with jigs but most articles say I’m bonkers because these are the areas they will avoid in summer because of low oxygen and limited supply of bait fish….rats, perhaps I should be barbel fishing this time of the year!
In my usual stubborn way, I’m going to give it a go anyway because my PB is not too demanding at 1 lb 4oz from 17 years ago and I can troll/cast past/to features in the river, as I make my way to the big holes. I’ve therefore loaded a small Shimano spinning reel with 5 kilo Power Pro braid and bought a selection of jelly jigs and a drop-shot rig from Harris Angling ready to go for it. The plan will be to troll some small Rapalas along the tree lines in shallower water and then drop-shot the deeper sections. If this fails, I’ve also bought some small livebait sliders and will get some gudgeon and small roach on the case if required.
I’m hoping to get the boat out there tomorrow once I rivet some home made trolling rests to the gunwales on the boat.
Fingers crossed for a result.
Mr Fish
14/08/2010
Big Perch Practice – River Dee (Ecclestone)
I bought a skiff style boat last year, but haven’t been out fishing on it yet because of “Dad” commitments, so today was more of a day to get the boat set-up right for fishing the lower sections of the Dee initially targetting perch and then pike when it gets a bit colder. I bought the bought from pike guide/author/minor angling celebrity Charlie Bettell who lived in the Broads but sadly passed away from cancer recently. I’m told he was quite a contentious character in the piking world (many of his forum contributions I've seen seem to have a knack of generating very heated arguments!), but my short dealings with him were all very positive – top bloke and very sad news.
To be honest, despite growing up in North Wales and fishing various stretches of the Dee from the day I bought a battered brown Austin Allegro from a mate in the Tivoli nightclub for 20 quid and became mobile, it’s always been a graveyard for me as regards results. The free Ecclestone ferry stretch has been particularly frustrating because it looks great and I’ve never had anything better than perch up to 6oz and pike to a shamefully crap 2lb. A low double followed a green/yellow spring dawg all the way to the bank once, but that’s about as close as I’ve got.
I can recall regularly sitting on rain sodden banks behind a quiver tip for 8 hours either without a rap all day, or picking up a single greedy trout or grayling. To add insult to injury, there was a big fish kill in the late 1990s on the river and I was dumbfounded when pike to over 25lbs; hoards of very big bream and chub and even barbel nudging double figures sadly came floating down the river. Rather than admit I was totally inept at that time, I am still clinging to the notion that the kill was actually as a result of a random fish farm dumping of dead stock, though I concede this is a truly pathetic long shot…
Recent years have been a bit better and I can now put together a good bag of dace or chublets in the faster sections of the river at and around Farndon; though, excluding Pike, a 1.5lb barbel stubbornly remains the biggest fish I’ve taken out of the river. I can only cling to the excuse that it’s a big, deep, powerful river in the main which is just plain hard to tackle successfully.
Anyhow, a few hours mooching about while looking at the sounder has identified some slacks with real depth of up to 20-25 ft and some casting/trolling of small plugs produced a couple of 8-10 oz perch. I need to get the rod set-up spot on and find out what this new “Drop-shotting” boat technique for perch is but I’ll give this some proper attention as soon as I can get out again…
Cheers
Mr Fish
To be honest, despite growing up in North Wales and fishing various stretches of the Dee from the day I bought a battered brown Austin Allegro from a mate in the Tivoli nightclub for 20 quid and became mobile, it’s always been a graveyard for me as regards results. The free Ecclestone ferry stretch has been particularly frustrating because it looks great and I’ve never had anything better than perch up to 6oz and pike to a shamefully crap 2lb. A low double followed a green/yellow spring dawg all the way to the bank once, but that’s about as close as I’ve got.
I can recall regularly sitting on rain sodden banks behind a quiver tip for 8 hours either without a rap all day, or picking up a single greedy trout or grayling. To add insult to injury, there was a big fish kill in the late 1990s on the river and I was dumbfounded when pike to over 25lbs; hoards of very big bream and chub and even barbel nudging double figures sadly came floating down the river. Rather than admit I was totally inept at that time, I am still clinging to the notion that the kill was actually as a result of a random fish farm dumping of dead stock, though I concede this is a truly pathetic long shot…
Recent years have been a bit better and I can now put together a good bag of dace or chublets in the faster sections of the river at and around Farndon; though, excluding Pike, a 1.5lb barbel stubbornly remains the biggest fish I’ve taken out of the river. I can only cling to the excuse that it’s a big, deep, powerful river in the main which is just plain hard to tackle successfully.
Anyhow, a few hours mooching about while looking at the sounder has identified some slacks with real depth of up to 20-25 ft and some casting/trolling of small plugs produced a couple of 8-10 oz perch. I need to get the rod set-up spot on and find out what this new “Drop-shotting” boat technique for perch is but I’ll give this some proper attention as soon as I can get out again…
Cheers
Mr Fish
03/10/2009
Big Perch - Attempt No 2 (Pickmere)
Blown off Pickmere
It's just not possible to pick my fishing days at the moment so even though I loathe fishing in the wind with a passion, it was off to Pickmere again today to brave 30mph winds, with complementary rain, for an afternoon/evening session. Back to the tree swims on the Sale Moor card to try to beat my Perch PB, which is only 1lb 4oz.
First cast nice Roach of 10oz, followed by a steady stream of smaller roach and perch to 8oz before the wind and rain became unbearable and I packed it in. The days of dogging it out when you're not enjoying it are gone for me and when the dog managed to hook himself on the feeder rig and bolt through the bushes I knew the gods were against me.
This whole specimen thing is proving quite a bit more challenging than I originally thought, with only one PB so far, let alone a true quality fish. More homework required on venues and the current train of thought is that I'll go for one PB target until it's broken, with a 1lb 4oz Perch sounding very makeable....
Mr Fish
It's just not possible to pick my fishing days at the moment so even though I loathe fishing in the wind with a passion, it was off to Pickmere again today to brave 30mph winds, with complementary rain, for an afternoon/evening session. Back to the tree swims on the Sale Moor card to try to beat my Perch PB, which is only 1lb 4oz.
First cast nice Roach of 10oz, followed by a steady stream of smaller roach and perch to 8oz before the wind and rain became unbearable and I packed it in. The days of dogging it out when you're not enjoying it are gone for me and when the dog managed to hook himself on the feeder rig and bolt through the bushes I knew the gods were against me.
This whole specimen thing is proving quite a bit more challenging than I originally thought, with only one PB so far, let alone a true quality fish. More homework required on venues and the current train of thought is that I'll go for one PB target until it's broken, with a 1lb 4oz Perch sounding very makeable....
Mr Fish
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