All about the perch.

Since I've begun dedicating much of my fishing time to lure fishing I've found myself spending quite large amounts of non-fishing time perusing lures online. The selection out there is unimaginable and the huge choice has got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, it's a case that the lures have to be designed not just to catch fish but catch anglers too. Take any pattern or design of lure you care to think of and I am sure that in some situation that design will catch fish. Then in most cases the manufacturer will produce said lure in between five and fifteen colours. But if the producer was to extensively test this range of colours in various conditions fairly (I know that's only theoretically possible) I am sure that one or two colours would probably fare badly, thus making them not-so-good-of-a-lure. But still the manufacturer makes, markets and sells them, and why should they do this? Well, because as I said before, anglers are like magpies and sometimes we just want bright things that attract us.

It's because of this theory and the general addictiveness of collecting these lures that I've become very careful of what I purchase. I quite often fill my online basket with lures I think look good and then spend ages reassessing how I think they will work and look in the water before filtering down to things I think will be successful for me. It's important I should say for me as for someone else they might well work. Either way you have to think they will work or there's no point purchasing them or casting them because confidence in what your offering is key.

Just the other day I arrived back at my desk to see a mailite bag sitting on my keyboard and knew exactly what was in it, as I'd been hoping the batch of new lures would arrive in time to take them out on my next session. There were two specific lures in the bag that I already knew were going to come into play on the canals.

The Tiki monkey! I love the name of this lure, and not only did I like the name of it but I liked the six small paddle tails and it's creature-like shape. I reckon it looks quite like a newt or possibly even a crayfish when in the water, but whatever it looked like I am damn sure it would make some serious disturbance. The only thing I had my doubts about was its size. Up until now I've been a little reserved with the size of lure I've been using on the canals, this however falls into a whole larger size bracket. 

Once I had it in hand and my nostrils were filled with the scent of fresh rubber and molopo (whatever molopo is) I quickly concluded that I fancied this might make a really good drop shot lure and I was right as well. A few days later I found myself on a regular haunt working a drop shot rigged Tiki monkey slowly along the inside marginal shelf when it got absolutely smashed by a big perch. How chuffed was I to have not only had some interest but landed, for my first fish on this weird and wonderful lure, such a stunning Sargent.

It really was a looker and not the normal shape of perch that have been caught here in the past. Most of the residents I've landed here are short, stocky, football shaped fish whereas this one was longer with a defined hump. Possibly it could have been a male fish as it seemed not to show any signs of having spawned or getting ready to spawn. 

Beyond that one decent fish I did get plenty of interest from smaller perch of which one in five attacks of the flailing Tikki monkey resulted in the lure going in a fishes mouth. There's no doubt that this attractive offering works, it's just whether the attacker is big enough to get the whole lot in its mouth.

Only a day later I got a second albeit much shorter session on a new bit of canal. Early morning I made my way down the tow-path of a bit of cut I wouldn't fish a evening session unless I had a loaded AK47 slung over my shoulder. As you can tell it's a bit of a dive and that's made worse by a few old Junker barges being resident. One of which seemed to be leaking fresh diesel into the canal from its listing, rotting hull.

I should go on record and say that I don't per se have anything against boaters apart from they don't really have much respect for anglers and have even less for the water ways, and when I see half a mile of canal with reflective oily swirls all over its surface it really gets up my nose. After walking what seems like miles I did eventually come to some seemingly unpolluted water, which was surprisingly clear... I mean really clear.

My obvious reaction was to go natural with the colour of my lures and use a few favourites including the newly deflowered Tiki monkey, silver Koypto and pumpkin paddler grub, the result of which was nothing for an hour's casting. Honestly I was thinking this new section might not turn out to be as good as I thought it was going to be. Then I remembered a new pack of gaudy Koyptos I had bought and surmised that maybe going to the opposite end of the colour spectrum might work.

The bright orange and black shad looked a little obvious when I tried it in the water and with such good visibility I could see it a foot and half down in the water. So I began working along the stretch casting the bright lure into the far side cover. Three casts in something grabbed at the lure and I struck into a good fish which turned out to be a nice looking zander. Well, it looked nice thrashing under the water before my lure came free. From then on I worked the cover tight and hard.

I'd just sent the lure into a small hole under an overhanging hawthorn when I felt a real thump as it dropped on a tight line. A quick strike and I found myself playing a rather chunky perch that had really engulfed the bright orange shad.

I have figured out a lot about lure fishing during this intense period of doing it and one of the key things I've concluded is that it's ten times harder to get a good hook up on a zander than a perch. Part of this is to do with the zanders preclusion to try to disable the lure/prey by nipping its tail. A lot of the time you feel the hit and strike, then contact no fish and that's when I suspect they're just grabbing the tail of the lure. Other times they really engulf the lure and you strike into the fish, only to have it come adrift in the fight because the hook hasn't really got a good hold in its bony upper mouth. Perch on the other hand, nine times out of ten really have a go at the lure and the hook gets a much better hold in their softer mouth. 

This theory really became evident when a bit further down the canal I located a shoal of zander grouped in the middle of the trench. The first fish I hit came all the way to the edge before thrashing around and throwing the hook. A smaller fish was next and that one got hooked in the side of the mouth, but the following one I felt hit and thrash before that too escaped. From then it was all nips on the lure until they had enough of my antagonization. Strangely though after the zander sport died off in that swim I found a shoal of smaller yet very aggressive perch which, given their size, were really having a pop at the orange Koypto right at the end of the retrieve right under my feet, and I had some fun with for my last half and hour on the bank.

The whole zander problem is a bit of a catch-22 two really. Yes, I could solve the problem by using a lure like the new fox drones which trail a small treble underneath. But any lure with a downward facing hook that gets used on the canal has, in my opinion, a very short life span and their use is going to send expenses sky high sooner or later when they get claimed by natural or unnatural snags. Or I could rig in a trailing hook around the tail, but I know from experience that this can effect the lures movement. My solution for now though will be to continue using the lures I am as they seem to be working and to instead use a stiffer rod which I have, whilst trying to adopt a more aggressive reactional strike to try and set the hook.

A new mobile approach.

Prior to the weekend I spent an inordinately large amount of time trying my best to devise a suitably efficient way to fish using both lures and dead baits. The crux of which has come down to quantity of tackle I want to carry. The reason I want to refine everything is my need to keep as mobile as possible whilst still giving myself options. Having already scaled my general kit down to a backpack, fold up landing net which hooks onto the aforementioned backpack, rods remained the only decision. I was always going to take my super light finesse outfit as it's the method I most wanted to concentrate on. The dead bait rod though was something I needed to review. 

I have for the longest time favoured barbel rods of either one and a quarter or one and three quarter pound test curve for my zander fishing and to save having to swap between the two I have always leaned to the heavier end of that spectrum just in case. But lately having seen how well modern short lure rods perform I've been thinking the barbel rods needed reassessing and that after doing so that they wouldn't make the cut for my updated canal kit. Hence I came up with the idea to scale down my zander rigs so as I could fish them on a shorter and lighter general purpose lure rod. This way not only could I use the outfit to fish a small dead bait on a float, but should I want to remove that rig and tie on a trace to fish larger lures I would have that option at my disposal.

With a two week solid block of work in the pipe line I was eager to hit the tow path as soon as possible to try out this new system. Now I should make it clear that given the current weather conditions I knew it was going to be a bit hit and miss in regards to finding unfrozen water and therefore even before I left the house I had the feeling I would be concentrating my efforts on metres of tow path instead of miles of canal.

My first session was a bit of a gamble as I was having to travel with no knowledge of whether the stretch of canal where I was going would be frozen. Luckily for me there was at least some free water when I arrived but it was still thawing, probably reducing the temp of the surrounding water as it did. So undeterred, I picked a starting point and began. In these conditions I knew I was looking to try and find pockets of fish grouped in specific areas and therefore if no indications of interest were forthcoming within half an hour of working and area over I moved on.

The first few spots produced zip, but not long after finding a sheltered area out of the wind where I surmised the sun had been on the water recently, I got a run on my scaled down dead rig which was holding steady just at the bottom of the trench off to my right. The culprit which turned out to be a small zander was very welcome not only to break the blank but as an indicator that other fish might be present.

After returning the micro zed I turned the attentions of my finesse outfit onto the area only to receive a definite snatch as I bounced a small black and chartreuse kopyto shad slowly along the clean bottom. But even after casting the water into a foam I couldn't get anything to really grab the lure. I did go through a few other different soft lures but they to brought no response either. 

Knowing there was fish that might be persuaded to attack in the area I was reluctant to leave and so instead changed angles by moving a short distance to my left. I was watching the dead float catching the tow as I once again retrieving the little kopyto shad. As it came up the nearside shelf it went solid as if I'd found a old branch of something on the bottom, but then it moved off zigzagging the line across the water. This little outfit might seem a little frail a first glance but I've quickly realised that once the sensitive tip bends right round the back bone of the rod kicks in and absorbs all the fight. In this case it was a beautiful thick set perch that had grabbed the little green shad.

I was out the very next day on a totally different canal and the conditions were totally different. As on the previous venue there was still ice which was also thawing, but whereas yesterdays stretch had maybe a foot and a half visibility, this one had mere inches. The water was that ubiquitous winter canal tea cup brown and the lures disappeared almost instantly after entering the water. Last visit though I had quite a bit of success using a small black curly tail grub and I still had confidence it would work again.

For once I was right and in just about every area I fished I would locate a shoal of perch somewhere whilst fan casting around the swim. Even as small as they were its very rewarding casting around and regularly getting miniature thumps and hits from these veracious little hunters. 

Quite happily I moved along the canal all morning fishing half an hour or more in each area until I felt the bites dried up and moved on. Even catching only small perch I was content knowing that sooner or later with the number of fish I was catching that something bigger might turn up. But I could never have predicted what that bigger fish would be.

There was a group of ducks getting a bit frisky a ways up the canal and truthfully I felt their amorous behaviour had probably spoilt the area they were in. Nevertheless I gave it a go and when I arrived they had shoved off. I flicked a slightly larger Hart M minnow on a 2 gram jig head tight under the far bank cover, felt it down onto the bottom and watched the yellow braid fall slack as it hit the mud. Literally I tightened up and jerked the lure up once, twice then a third time before I felt one of the hardest bangs I've ever had on a lure.

Obviously I had hooked something of a much larger size and straight away it was powering around the swim as I stood on the opposite bank desperately trying to steer it away from the snaggy far margin. Having only caught perch so far my first thoughts were of a big perch, or maybe that was just hope. Sense though soon prevailed and my theory changed from perch to zander. The fight though went on far too long for a zander and then the obvious culprit became a pike of possibly some size.

The fish though seemed to not be satisfied with just powering around in the centre of the canal as I would of expected a pike to do. Then all too soon things got a bit dirty as the still unseen fish began charging towards any bit of cover on my own bank. Finally it came to the surface and I spotted a very un-pike like flank roll. Then a few more charges and turns later it surface properly and it's true identity was reviled by a pair big rubbery lips that framed a mouth big enough to throw a golf ball down. I had landed certainly my biggest canal chub and even better I had done it on a finesse lure outfit. 

Lying in the soft grass on my net which it was nearly as long as. Next to my tiny rod and reel, it almost seemed comical  that I landed it on this light gear. 

After a couple of pictures that were hastily taken by a very excited me I slipped it back a good way away from the swim. It was on the way back to the scene of the capture that I remembered years ago I caught a couple of albeit much smaller chub from this stretch fishing worms for perch. I did hazard a few more casts but really I knew that the epic fight had ruined the swim and that any other chub would have done one after the pair of us caused such a commotion. One thing I can say is that I will be going back to this stretch again and again as the year progresses and that I am already concocting some surface lure plans in my head to try and nab one off the top once it's warmed up.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that even thought the dead bait line produced only one fish amongst many I was actually satisfied enough with how it worked out to think that this will for now be how I will be fishing this second rod in conjunction with my new super mobile approach.