Back to the Perch fishing and a suprise appearance...

After last weeks Perch fishing me, my father and brother have made several visits back to the lake with varied success. Ollie managed a couple of hours on the lake and bumped into a rather well known angler who I understand was very helpful and took a great picture for Ollie. I won't mention any names...

Ollie has put a lot of hours into his Perch fishing this season and had yet to catch a fish over the 2lb barrier; he even managed to catch one Perch at 1lb 13oz no less than three times!

He braved the weather; heavy rain and harsh winds, as a result he was rewarded with this fine PB stripey:

At 2lb 8oz it put a nice bend in his fishing rod and tested out his beautiful old centrepin reel!

Don't ignore the margins!

All his fish have been caught no more than 2 ft from the bank so don't ignore the margins!

My old man followed this up with and absolutely stunning Perch, he really needs to take a decent camera with him next time as the photo doesn't show the true beauty of this cracking Perch... It weighed in at 3lb and is now an unofficial lake record so well done!

3lb of stripey and a lake record. Well done old man!!!

I must stress that each of our sessions have been the final hours of light, it's important to make a note of times that all fish are caught so that you can use this as a reference for you future sessions. It might be worth targeting a different species on a different lake that may feed during the morning then heading to your Perch lake later on in the day.

We have been fishing exclusively with prawns as a hook-bait and a mix of chopped prawn and worm as loose feed. I myself have used both king prawn and the smaller peeled prawn and it doesn't seem to affect my catch rates so I'll probably stick with cooked prawn as you get significantly more for your money!

We made one more trip to our favorite little lake yesterday and the weather looked perfect, slightly over-cast; mild and no wind. My how that changed as soon as we began fishing! It started off becoming windy and then light cutting rain began to fall. Neither my father or I were dressed for any form of rain but we fished on. I had a strange take within 10 minutes, the float simply moved across the surface, often Perch do this but as I struck I could tell I was into one of the lakes other inhabitants; a Carp...

My rod began bending within moments, I had to keep my thumb on the spool of my centrepin reel to prevent it from parking itself under the tree to my left. After about 30 seconds it changed it's direction towards the middle of the lake where I had a chance of landing the now angry Carp and also away from my chosen quarry. After about 8 minutes it tired and my father expertly landed it into his net. After a couple of pictures we slipped the Carp back in the corner of the lake and got our Perch minds back together.

Good fun on light tackle and a pin! 

Within 5 minute of slipping the invader back, the heavens opened, a hail storm like none I had experienced emptied on our heads! Branches started falling from tress around us that could easily knocked us unconscious and we both ended up getting bites whist this happened!!! I landed a Perch of around 1lb 8oz and my father caught one at 2lb. His left rod also went round which we believe was a Carp, it dropped the bait within moments thankfully!

A nice 2lb Perch to add his collection in the last week!

We fished on and caught a few smaller Perch but it seemed to quieten down strangely after the storm had disappeared!? Ollie turned up for the last hour and got in the action with a couple of Perch to 1lb 13oz and we called it a day not long after.

So to conclude, our little lake has Perch to 3lb for sure but does it have bigger? Time will tell in the coming month or so as we will carry on targeting it's inhabitants in the hope of catching something truly remarkable...