Korum Cup Winner

In a year 2015, where I had a personal best perch of 5lb-4oz and a brace of crucians at 4lb-6oz and 4lb-8oz taken in a 2 hour spell, I was quite pleased to say the least. Add the 16lb-12oz barbel and 15lb-4oz bream and it gets even better. With a 10lb-12oz barbel off the River Wey it was my 27th different river double and this now adds up to probably my most successful year in the 50 odd years I've been on different banksides
Now to top it all off I've won the Korum Cup competition run over the last calendar year.

It is also quite nice that a reprint of my first book 'Rainbow's End' will be going to the printers in the next week or two.  The reprint is being done by Little Egret Press and details will be found on their website.

Monster perch and other bits.

For a few seasons now I’ve tried to improve my perch personal best of 4lb-4oz taken from Wilstone Reservoir in 2003, the nearest I’ve come to that ambition is a well spawned out 3lb-15oz fish that would easily have beaten the target just days previous to my capture of such a brilliant fish.

                                        Spawned out 3lb-15oz Specimen

Currently we seem to be in a vein of waters producing large perch and here I talk of 3lb plus being a large fish.  Most specialist anglers will fish for the day and if such a specimen comes within their catch they will feel it has been a successful trip, often such a fish will be joined by others of a similar weight since they do shoal together in an age group of their companions.  Many tactics can be used for the perch and the recent popularity of the drop-shot techniques has definitely led to an increase in the reports of large perch from our canals as well as other venues around the country.

In recent times many of the venues that were giving up a good standard of perch to my efforts seemed to have come to the end of their cycle.  It would seem that unfortunately perch are one of the shorter lived specimens that we pursue and once they get to and interesting size they do not stay around for too long before Mother Nature makes a claim on their life.  One advantage for me of the drop-shot rage is that it had shown the potential of many of our Midland Rivers and I felt I should at least try to take advantage of that before this age class disappears yet again.  All too often I have been involved in other target searches and though I would fish for the perch on another occasion only to find I tried too late, this time a strong effort over the later part of the season would hopefully produce the goods.

Arriving at the venue I chose a section that had a reasonable amount of cover on the nearside bank, this had given a number of slack areas downstream of their obstacle and the one I chose to concentrate on extended over some 15 yards or more, plenty of space for the perch to hunt in.  I had decided to use a quivertip rod rather than the float since it would give me more chance to flick the lobworm bait into little gaps and the outside edge of bushes.  A 2oz quiver on a Drennan Medium Feeder rod and 6lb line  to a size 6 wide gape hook gave plenty of power to beat the size of fish I hoped for, that being a 4lb plus  specimen.

I dropped into the first choice swim and cast right down to the bottom end of the slack.  Then I began feeding red maggots into the head of the swim, these slowly went downstream on the slight flow that still existed within the slack area.  My idea was to very slowly retrieve the lobworm by turning the reel handle just one turn at a time to cause the quiver to bend right over and then return to its original position.  I kept repeating this action every minute or so and in my mind I felt this was akin to the action of a slow motion drop-shot method with a moving bait to attract attention of the prey fish.  It was with some surprise [though I’m not sure why] when after several of these turns of the handle the quivertip straighten and then almost immediately pulled round again.  The pull round was nice and steady; I returned the favour with a nice and steady strike and pulled into a good weight of resistance.  Over the previous days we had been getting quite hard frosts overnight and I can only assume these were the possible cause for the comparatively poor scrap off this monster fish that came into the net.

                                                        5lb-4oz of monster perch.

I had hoped for a 4lb perch and as I looked I could see I had definitely got it.  That said, when the scales showed a weight of 5lb-4oz it was well beyond my expectation and it now ranks amongst my top three all-time personal bests.   I thought the dimensions would be of interest to many and these were length 19.125 inch with a girth of 16.5 inch.  One thing is definite about this fish and that is that the weight and dimensions cannot possibly portray the fish I was looking at on the bank.

Over the next week I did a bit of perch fishing on a local stillwater and took a good number of 2lb and 3lb plus fish though not the 4lb specimen I was hoping for, still a bit of time for that yet.  A trip to the Warwickshire Avon gave a nine fish catch of chub with two over 5lb, the target was barbel and with the addition of two of those at 3lb and 6lb it proved to be a very active day.

                                                      A good brace of stillwater perch

I had thought to let any interest in the big perch die off and now as the days on the river were running out I decided I would return to try for one of her larger relations, be it sister or brother I did not mind as either would be quite large.   On the previous trip I had used just one rod, this time I decided to include a second float rod which I would use to present a prawn bait in appropriate areas where possible.  That first perch had come within 20 minutes of me starting but this time I searched swim after swim without any indications and as time ran out I returned to the large slack where I began.  As my self-imposed 6.00pm deadline approached I put the float rod away and tidied up the rest of my tackle.  Still feeding the red maggots into the swim, along with the slow retrieve and with just 10 minutes to go the tip finally pulled round in response to a bite.  This time the fight was worthy of a big perch and all the time I was hoping the hook would hold as the fish was shaking her head in the normal fashion of the species.  It did hold and I landed another large perch but I thought it was the same fish and the weight suggested such was the case.  I took a couple of photographs to conclusively confirm this thought and they did just that showing a slight dip in the lower lobe of her tail.  Of course a pleasing capture, but I had hoped for a different fish and now that must wait until next season as long as these monsters stay around that long.

                                                  Still 5lb-4oz and worthy of a photo.

Variety is the spice of life.

It’s been a strange week of highs and lows, catching fish and blanking in other words.  At the start of the week I went after perch on a venue that has done a number of good fish.  I went in with maggots since that seems to have been working well and even with the cold north wind blowing in my face I caught a couple of nice specimens.  The rig used was a straight forward helicopter rig fished just above a standard oval Drennan swimfeeder.  The hooklink was 5lb and the hook itself was a size 12 Super Specialist loaded with a nice bright red artificial maggot along with two other red naturals.  With a bright sun beating down I took a 7lb-8oz hybrid and a 3lb-1oz perch that was busting at the seams, a very pleasing day.

                                              3lb-1oz perch ready to spawn.

                                                   Nice specimen hybrid of 7lb-8oz.

The next day I had to stay home as we have builders in doing alterations and dad had a hospital appointment for a check-up.  I did not think it would matter, but perhaps it did.  I returned for the perch thinking there must be some very big ones about if they are that shape, but although I caught three they were all back to normal, or even below normal shape, they had spawned.  The weights were 2lb-2oz, 2lb-14oz and 3lb-4oz and it left me wondering what they would have weighed a day or two earlier.

                                                         

                                                        3lb-4oz best of the three.

My next visit was after the tench since the previous trip I had suffered a blank while the lad next to me had several fish.  The tench themselves where well under their ideal weight but now is the time to refine your catching methods and yet again I failed to do so.  Worse was the fact that again the lad next to me had several fish up to about 6lb.  Back to the drawing board and I’ll try again next week with different tactics.

Now we are up to last night and that was a good one.  I decided on eels and although the night went very cold, probably close to freezing the fish appeared to be feeding.  The strong wind did not help and coming from the NE it chilled me to the bone each time I answered a run or indication, there were plenty of them and before dark I had a nice perch that had taken a fancy to the bait I had sent out for the eels.  Throughout the first few hours of darkness I was getting drop off runs that were either small eels or maybe small silverfish that could not manage the bigger bait I was using.  Amongst the takes there was one that did stick when I struck and I was shortly netting a nice 4lb-2oz eel as my first of the new year.

                                                      A nice trio on the night.

                                                       4lb-5oz best of the night.

This was just before 10:00pm and I waited until about 3:00am before I contacted another eel, this time slightly larger at 4lb-5oz.  As a serious eel fisher I set my eel target at 4lb plus, so to get a brace of them was very pleasing and just after dawn I added yet another though this was smaller at 2lb-13oz.  It was quite interesting to note that on the web there were a number of lads reporting eel captures and it makes you wonder what made that night different.

Perch, pike, trout and big roach - a good week.

Well as you will know it’s been a wet and windy week, I tried pike, perch and roach fishing with varied success, but at least it has been fairly mild for November.  Going by the different weather forecast pundits we are going to have an ice age winter or a repeat of Noah’s Ark, this being the case I’ll expect a fine, mild and dry winter since they never seem to get it right even for the next day.

On Tuesday I went pike fish and although I never set the angler press lines buzzing I did get three jacks on various deadbaits, mackerel and sardine; probably that’s because that is what I had on the hooks.  I think we often put too much emphasis on the bait, where-as the fish just find food and take it whatever it is.

On Thursday I travelled south into the Kennet Valley with plans to fish with John Found for a couple of days and then one day on my own since John had plans to attend a book launch for Pete Springate’s new tome.

                                                Perch fishing on the canal section.

With no need for an early start I met John at the car park on the Kennet and Avon Canal at 11:00am ready for the day’s sport after the big perch known to swim in the area.  For those not familiar with this region but thinking they might like to try it out, then the Reading and District book give dozens of miles of both river and canal fishing along with numerous lakes.  The name says it all in that the river and canal flow side by side over the distance between Newbury and Reading.  Often they have separate waterways, but just as often they join and run as one until the next weir and they go their separate ways again.

John had identified a couple of swims where perch were caught and I dropped into one of these for the afternoon.  Although this section of canal can often have quite a flow on it, there seemed little movement today as there were no boats on the move.  The swim itself was a section where the far bank had overhanging brambles which gave shelter to the fish keeping the boats away from the bank.  Fishing with a pole would be the ideal since that would allow you to go into quite tight spots and place the bait right against the bank but casting had its obvious problem of the slightest misjudgement going into the brambles and possible breakage.

                                                                   The perch's home

I chose a slight hollow where the brambles formed an arc and at least I had a few feet to play with although I still hit the brambles on one occasion and was lucky to get the tackle back intact.  The tackle was an open-ended feeder, fished paternoster style with the size 8 hook on 4lb fluorocarbon line attached so the hook hung just above the feeder when I was ready to cast it out.  With the rod held vertically in front of me and a pendulum style swing away from my body directly at the chosen spot for the tackle to land was the way to hit the swim with regular consistency.  Casting with the rod held to either side and then a swing towards the swim will end up in disaster, a split second error in releasing the line from the spool sends the bait to either side of the intended spot and the waiting brambles just say ‘thank you very much’ and on most occasions they keep your free gift to them.

My hookbait was a lobworm and within the feeder was a mix of casters, chopped up dendrobaenas, and prawns all held in a light method mix.  A dozen casts at the beginning of the session soon had a bit of feed laid down to attract the perch if they were in the area.  I waited about an hour for the first bite on my quivertip and hooked a nice fish only to have it come off the hook about half way back to my side of the canal.  Disappointing but at least there were fish feeding.  Over the next few hours I took two others of 2lb-4oz and 2lb-7oz as well as missing a couple of bites, but that will often happen with lobworms as bait.  An interesting start to my break but what would tomorrow bring?

                                                             A nice Kennet & Avon canal perch.

For the Friday it was arranged that we would visit Dave Steuart’s section of the River Test again in the hope of a big river roach.  With all the current rain in the area we knew the chances would not be good, but Dave had suggested that legering might produce the goods with the odd swim still available for float fishing in the slack water.   As expected it was hard going, I got a grayling from  a comparative slack water on the far side of the rive while John managed a roach of about  1lb from the bottom weir pool.  A few brown trout fell to both of us but they do tend to be a bit stupid so no surprise there.  We had left the best chance to last and although I got a couple of small roach, it was John who took first prize with a 2lb-4oz specimen roach that makes these trips so worthwhile.  A short walk away was slack water that allowed the fish to rest and photos to be taken before returning them to fight another day.

 

                                               The River Test runs through the garden.

                         John with the 1st prize of 2lb-4oz.

           One of the big browns we caught.

The Saturday proved to be a total washout, rain from the start to the finish, and my thought of a return trip to tempt a bigger perch from the section of canal failed miserably with total blank.  That’s what fishing is about in my eyes, the chance of a monster fish, but it needs work and effort to succeed and those good days have to be treasured to make up for the blanks.

My last trip South for this season.

Yet again I did the trip to the south and fished the Hampshire Avon for those big chub that swim there.  As you know the weather last Sunday and Monday was just a little bit cold, quite a change from the previous days when that snow fell on Sunday.  I had planned the trip to begin on Tuesday but I did wonder whether that very cold snap could make it just too bad for even the chub to tolerate.

 I checked the river temperature by the gauge at Knapp Mill [ http://www.knappmill.co.uk/id2.html ]  and could see the water had dropped from just over 10C to about 6.5C but if I stayed home what would I do? – I went.

Over the next few days I consistently caught chub, not as big I would have hoped for with a best weight of 6lb-1oz but the chance was always there.  A bonus perch of 2lb-7oz also took the artificial caster that was being used to beat the ever present problem of minnows; there are millions of them in the river.  The bull-head that took a maggot almost half its own length was outnumbered by a factor of 1000/1 by those minnows, but he still got onto the bait.

6lb-1oz Avon chub.

2lb-7oz bonus perch.

                                                            Pesky things are a right pain.

                                                       Ugly, but somebody loves him.

As with last week’s account there is always plenty of wildlife to see in the area, deer, buzzards, kingfishers and all the common birds you see on the bank everywhere.  One unusual sighting was that of a male ring ouzel that has obviously strayed into the area normally being found further north.  I tried for my normal photo shot but the dam thing would stay long enough to get it, another time perhaps.

                                                               Always something of interest about.

John Found, who was again my fishing companion, had a frustrating couple of days.  He tried a new swim and was delighted to get indications off chub almost straight away.  The problem he had was one of not being able to conect with apparently perfect bites that would even spin the reel.  Time and time again he missed, and then would connect with a fish out of the blue on an indication that appeared exactly the same.  He managed to hook eight to a best of 6lb-3oz over the two days, but he reconds he missed maybe 50 or more.  One logical answer is that they were not truely bites, instead it was the chub taking the maggots out of the feeder and giving that tell tale indication.  If you suffer a similar situation try casting into the swim with no bait on the hook and see if you still get the apparent perfect bite.

                                                     Chub rig with 4lb Fireline and artificial caster.

Barbel river and the end of the warm weather.

A bit slow on completed this blog as I have been quite busy on other things like the article for the Coarse Angling Today magazine, and a chapter for a proposed Tenchfishers Book.  The last week has been a mixed bag of perch fishing, with a dash of barbel chasing thrown in for good measure.  The water that seemed to offer the best chance of a 4lb perch last season seems to have lost its potential with the larger fish all apparently gone, this yet again reinforces the view I’ve often expressed of ‘make the best of it today since you don’t know what tomorrow may bring.’   Not sure what happened, but it seemed the fish were there in February [four known 4lb perch] but gone by the end of March.   So I’m back on the search trail again and a couple of trips in the week to a water that seems to have potential only produced two fair perch with maybe 1lb-8oz for the best one.  It will be a long winter so still plenty of time to find a water to concentrate on come next spring when they will reach peak weights.

When the forecast showed the colder weather coming into the area for the end of the week I decided to get one last trip to the Derwent for barbel.  I took a float rod along with me with a few lobworms to have a little try for the perch along the edge of the rushes, but that ended in failure as a hooked fish that would almost certainly have been a nice perch [the alternative could have been chub but it did not try to get into the rushes] threw the hook before I could get it to leave the river bed to enable me to get a look at what I had hooked.

I had taken hemp and casters along for the session and with this mix I laid a nice bed of feed in mid-river then fished casters over the top with a swimfeeder in play as well.  Lots of knocks and taps off small fish with a few of them hooked, but none of the larger fish showed.  As it got dark the temperature dropped a little, but it was still quite mild so I determined to stay on for a while.  An hour into dark I changed rigs to the open-ended feeders and 8mm pellets that have worked so well this season and I did get two barbel, one of 6lb plus and another of 10lb-7oz to give a fine ending to the day.  Will there be another chance before Xmas? – we wait and will see.

                                                    10lb-7oz on the last day of November.

That brings me up to date and still making plans for the next week though I’ve arranged a zander trip for Sunday, be interesting to see if that can work.

Lake Perch - The last days of Autumn means big perch.

Autumn is officially defined by the met office as the months of September, October and November so with winter almost on us I cannot be too surprised that the fog and frosts have finally arrived.  At the start of the week I had decided to visit the zander lake in the hope of contacting one of the many double fish that seem to be being caught at present.  Curtis was up and ready at the 6:30am arranged pick-up time and we slowly made our way over the 40 odd miles through the patchy fog that was about.  Going along the motorway at 35-40 mph it seems amazing that these lads with x-ray eyes can flash past into quite thick fog at incredible speeds – accidents waiting to happen.

We set up our tackle and with a section of lamprey on one of the rods and a 4 inch roach on the other, with Curtis fishing the same I was reasonable confident that at the very least our offering would be acceptable to the zander, or even pike should they wish to make an appearance.  For most of the morning the fog hung about and although voices could be heard coming over the lake it was all a mystery as to who, or where, other anglers were placed.  Although the afternoon brightened up quite nicely, the fish refused to play and the bailiff suggested that only one 16lb pike had been caught on the complex, disappointing but that’s fishing.

Although it rained quite heavily over Monday night I thought the barbel fishing could suffer a double whammy.  One, the drop in temperatures, but more the case was that with the lack of floods the weed would move and make fishing quite a hit and miss affair.  Time for a bit of perch fishing so with tackle ready I set out for a local carp commercial that should offer the chance of a 3lb perch or even bigger.  Although I do use leger tactics for the perch, I prefer to float fish just so I can watch that red tip as it dips and slides away in response to a take.  My bait was the trusty lobworm and I intended to spray red maggots into the swim just to attract the silver fish along with the perch into the area.  I’ve found that on these commercials it can pay dividends to fish close into the side, it is noticeable that the match lads often do exactly the same.  This might be the side where you’re fishing, or the side of one of the islands that invariably are present, either seems to work that little bit better than open water.

                                                                  2lb-4oz best of 9

Arriving at midday I only had about 4hr or 5hr to fish, but the first perch came quite quickly to show they were present in the chosen swim.  I am not sure about putting perch back into the water where you are catching them, so to be on the safe side I walk them two swims away before returning them to their watery home.  Keep nets are banned unless in an organised match, not sure why that would be different, but it does stop that photo shot of a few nicely marked fish.  With nine perch from 8oz to 2lb-4oz caught in the remaining time before dusk I was well pleased, and a return trip is well on the cards for tomorrow - that big fish is just waiting to be caught.

                                              Sunset can be a good time for perch fishing

My book ‘Target set and achieved’ sales are going well and I would thank all who have sent for a copy for their confidence that my writings are worth reading.  With Xmas coming on quite quickly it might be an idea to give yourself a real treat with a leather bound copy of this book that I’m sure will prove to be an investment.  With just 40 individually numbered copies, bound in high quality goatskin in a shade of ‘antique burgundy’ to the very highest of standards I am well pleased with the finished article.  I recently saw a leather copy of Magic Moments sold at £350, this edition sold at just £125 in 2004.  I appreciate that at £175 this edition is more than many can afford in these trying times, hence the fact that there are copies left; but give me a call on 07980 394864 to ensure there is still one left for you and I’ll reserve it with your name against the sale.

                                                                Your Xmas box?

http://www.philsmithangler.co.uk/ for a standard edition.