Back from injury yet again.

"Go easy! We've got all day", she said as I stood two feet below ground level with a large Japanese maple draped around me, in the hole where our nature pond used to be. But as I am a man and we're not known for heeding our other halves warnings I carried on like a man possessed. And possessed I was at reclaiming the hundred pound or more of pea gravel that I'd used as a leveling agent under the hard plastic pond years ago. I'd tried a shovel and a spade but neither seemed to be making a dent in the ever shifting gravel, the only thing that seemed to be making an impact was a terracotta plant pot as big as my head. On my knees sweating like a pig in barbecue season, I repeatedly scooped up pots full of gravel and tossed it up onto the ground around the pond. Bar being filthy and sweaty all was well until one particularly awkward twist prompted an almost audible twang accompanied by a dull stabbing pain in the right side of my lower back.

That was two weeks ago when I had specifically booked some time off work to clear my vegetable patch which has languished terribly since BB's arrival. We'd even sent the little fellow off for a day with the grandparents so as be free of the hindrance of childcare, and there I was two hours in with a developing back pain, starting to do the old Charlie Chaplin walk.

Not only did that end the gardening but it also shot down three shorts sessions I had been planning in my head. The kit and caboodle came out to nurse the strained back, but still it's taken well over a week to get back to anywhere near close to being able to get out fishing again.

I didn't think sitting on the old chair for a session would be beneficial for my first time out so I grabbed the crazy cranker and shot over to Napton for a lure session, hoping the perch might be on the feed as they have proved to be in the past in late summer. With all the perch that I've caught in Napton bait fishing, I have a suspicion that somewhere in those moody depths hides some real monsters. So I went at it with a range of small to medium sized lures to try and sort out something bigger if that was possible.

Over the last two years I have lure fished Napton a fair bit, and on every single trip it has been a case of feast or famine. I reckon it's just one of those waters where the fish are either on or off. I chatted to a few anglers just generally fishing before I started to see how the day was going and all bar one were struggling to get bites from any species. After hearing the fish seemed off the feed I quickly nipped back to the car to pick up a couple of extras boxes of lures I bought along just in case, and boy was I glad I did!

The perch were not in the mood to attack what so ever and after covering the smaller half of the water I put away the small soft baits which I'd been working slowly along the bottom. Out game the shallow running hard baits and surface baits to try and lure any waiting pike in the shallows to attack. Not long after I began casting a shallow running Yozuri lure along the reeds I watched and undeceive pike of maybe five pounds follow it all the way to the bank before thinking better of attacking. A few casts later a tiny jack pike shot out from the edge not five feet from where I was standing the bank and smashed the lure without even a moments consideration.

It was undoubtedly going to be a hard session but the fact I'd had one follow and one fish kept me going with the knowledge that it was a case of covering water to find pike rather than perch. The only problem was that the pike did seem to be holding in the shallow water, which on Napton is largely inaccessible. This in mind I headed down to the weedy shallow end at the head of the lake which most anglers avoid.

With the wind coming off my back I began casting slow sinking Sizmic toads tight against the reeds and reeling them quickly back just under the water but above the weed. Straight away another small pike slashed after the lure twice before disappearing. A lot of casting later I found a second fish which bow waved after the lure making me think it was a better fish before it hit the lure and turned into a second tiny jack.

After covering the whole shallow area at the top the lake and not finding any more fish I moved round working different diving hard baits trying to locate fish. Although I had no more takers I did spot a very large carp drifting over the weed with seemingly not a care in the world. The last modicum of action came when yet another small jack shot out from the nearside reeds after my little plug only to stop a foot off the lure with a look in its eye like it had just clocked the rouse.

In the past I might of said it was a bit of a disappointing session, but since I've been lure fishing I've figured that expectations are different from when bait fishing. Strikes and follows are seemingly as much as a prize as catching the fish in some cases, and when you can get one chasing the lure just under the water that I find is just as exciting as watching float lift up amongst a fizz of tench bubbles. My session in fact was made by that tiny jack snaffling the toad lure after following it for at least twenty feet before smashing so hard it sent the lure right up the trace over the clip and swivel. So even as hard a Napton has proved to be in the past I know I will be back in the future and maybe the perch might be a bit more obliging then.

Time to stop this lingering.

I can't deny I've been lingering round after a big perch since Christmas. It's largely to do with the rivers poor conditions but also partly to do with me fancying a really big one. Only problem is that I have failed to land the giant I've sought! In the process though I have landed getting on for twenty fish over two pounds from five different venues, which now I see it on the screen in front of me doesn't sound that bad at all. In fact if you translate that into carp numbers for comparison which is essentially ten times that of perch weights, I have then caught what is the equivalent of twenty, twenty pound carp and that sounds even more insane!

Anyway that is all by the by as this malingering has to stop as I am beginning to see signs of tench being caught and the niggling urge to throw feeders into the stratosphere creeps upon me. But I needed an out or a finale to finish this fluviatillis phase I've been having. So rather than go back to one of the myriad of pools I have been inhabiting I decided to head back to the stretch of canal that has in the past provided me with more than my fair share of Jurassic perch to try and end it with a bang...Oh and it ended with a BANG!

I arrived after dinner thinking I would fish right into that classical perch feeding time just before dark. From the inside of my temperate car it looked to all intents and purposes a warm sunny spring afternoon. Outside my car the choice to not wear any thermal leggings under my trousers felt a little foolhardy! The wind was cutting along the canal in exactly the wrong way for comfort. I trudged along the bank looking for shelter but there was no chance of that on this session as the wind was actually blowing perfectly in line with the canal. With no one spot seeming any more sheltered than the other I decided to instead just plonk myself in what I consider a good area.

The action was slow to arrive in truth and after an hour and a half of regularly distributing broken uplobs around my two floats which were positioned one on and one off the shelf, I’d only had a two smallish perch and a random four pound bream. The wind was by now beginning to bite through my clothes and I’d even searched out a pair of gloves from my bag.

Persistence paid dividends though and after upping my feed rate a wave of bites came along. In that first wave of fish I had a couple of pound plus fish and a fat two pounder along with several smaller ones. Then the bites died off, I feed hard again and a second flurry occurred and this time I had two big ones in the rampage of smaller fish.

This script continued on for the entirety of the session and much as predicted as the boats slowed and the sun sank to the horizon the action went into over drive. Soon the perch were going crazy and it was inevitable I would get a double hit. I was playing what looked like a really deep fish which had come on the inside line when I saw the second float slide away towards the centre of the canal. With one rod jammed in between my legs I forced the first bigger into my waiting net then swapped rods to land the second smaller fish.

One over two and one under, both bulging, these fish were seriously hungry and fighting fit. I still had two hours of light left by my reckoning. The action went from the sublime to plain old out of this world and all the time I was getting colder and colder. But the chance of me leaving was very unlikely as I was making hay whilst the sun shone, or should I say catching perch whilst the wind blew. Having plenty of bait and queue of hungry perch just lining up to get in the action I fished as hard as I ever have right up until my floats were no longer visible in the dank light of dusk.

Packing away shivering in the dark I was a very happy man. Give or take a few I reckon that conservatively I caught over forty perch in the five hours I fished. Most were between 8oz and 1.6lb, seven were over two pounds and the biggest of those weighed in at 2.9lb. Add in the handful of mint roach, three zander and that four pound bream and I reckon I put over thirty pounds of fish on the bank.

I only have one regret about this session... That I didn't take a keepnet along with me as what a picture all those perch would have made!

It felt so right... and yet fished so wrong

                             
We all love Autumn, of that there is no doubt. I think as Spring is filled with hope, Autumn is tinged with reflection. They are both times when fishing can be bountiful as the fish like all other animals are either refreshing stores of energy spent over the Winter, or stocking up for the lean times ahead. And although we are still hanging onto Autumn like those last few leaves that cling to the tree outside the window, there is still fruit to be plucked before the world becomes barren.

Like most I find myself in a predator state of mind right now; fattening pike, hungry zander and of course mammoth perch fill my mind. I count myself to be particularly blessed where the latter are concerned, as I have been lucky enough to, on the top of a solid base of two pound fish, land three three's and a four in the last two seasons, from a variety of  differing waters.

The canals have been good to me in these endeavours and although right now I feel it unlikely that they will produce a massive fish, they have enabled me to hone my perch float fishing skills to a point where I have total blind confidence in my method. Conversely the rivers locally don't inspire me enough to spend to much of my valuable time chasing after stripy ghost stories. So I find myself looking at a myriad of commercial pools that have recently become more viable places to search out those oversized Sargent's I so want.

I really do like fishing for these unpressurised predators on commercial style venues. The idea that they were never stocked intentionally or only as a filler fish and that they have now begun to grow to record shaking sizes kind of gives me a kick. But a small worry has crept in my head over the situation. You see I have begun to look for a certain size of water in this search for perch. I don't want it so big as it would make finding them near impossible and I don't want them so small as they don't have the resources to grow big. For me, and I say me as this is only my personal opinion, half a football pitch to a full football pitch is ideal. This sort of over stocked water can produce more than enough fodder for a perch to become big and it's not to hard in only a few sessions to search a lot of it out. BUT! this theory has kind of undermined itself for me, as now I am beginning to think that I and others might be re-catching the same fish again and again in these limited sized waters. Truth be told nothing spoils a water, peg or capture for me as a re-catch. I don't know exactly why it is that I find so disagreeable about them, but if I see the same fish out of the same swim of lake twice I just tend to walk away.

Oddly though it is a recapture that I took me fishing to the little lake where I was at the weekend. But then this recapture hasn't yet happened and in defence of my contradiction, the original capture happened some ten years ago. The water in question is the tiny woodland pool often used as a salve when lean times take their toll. It was on this small secluded pool that I caught one of my very first big perch by accident. At that time in my life I was merely concerned with catching any fish and was in no way inclined towards the pursuit of bigger sport. I think to say it was an old warrior would of been an understatement: worn down fins, one white eye and a distinct lack of flesh between the dorsal spines would describe the fish quite aptly. Even looking as rough as it did it was one of the biggest stripy's I had ever seen. Then low and behold on the same venue a few weeks later my mate Neil had another totally different one. As with a lot of information it gets discarded to the back of the human mind until something prompts recollection. In my case is was on a warm summer evening a couple of summers ago as I sat watching a quill next to lily pad that I spotted a corner of the pool erupt with fry. The float I was watching lost all appeal for a while and  I reeled in and went off to investigate...

The corner was black with fry and like a pelagic scene the little fishes moved as one. Every so often I could see them dart off in all directions leaving holes where the water would become disturbed by a larger fish charging into the shoal. I must have watched for half an hour before the rush of silver panic came flying from the water and what followed was the thing that prompted my memory. It wasn't a big perch by anyones standard but that single half pound perch, that with one pass of it stripy flank made me simultaneously remember those big fish and realise that this water was stuffed full of prey fish, and that perch were the only real aquatic predator.

Off and on  have been visiting and have had a modicum of  success that has kept me inspired. Although I have only had fish to just over two pounds they have all been young looking fish and that is good enough for me. Though saying that, this like many waters of  it kinds does have a draw back....carp!

As I am sure anyone who goes fishing for perch on these types of venues knows, big baits intended for perch have the magnetic ability to attract even the most lathargic carp on the coldest days, when people that are intentionally fishing for them can't get a bite! They're like anglers going past tackle shops - 'we just cant help ourselves' and neither can they.

The weather was just so perfect this past weekend. Not bad temps, heavily overcast sky and a light scattering of leaves on the water. I even got a pass out for an afternoon into night session. So this seemed the perfect opportunity to fish that most prized of angling times around dusk. The heavy cover of leaves that normally shroud this pool were more than half gone and in the tall oaks at the end of the spinney the crow roost was clearly visible. I was shocked to find no less than six other anglers lined up all along on bank hurling baits within feet of the opposite bank (that is accessible) trying to catch carp. Seeing them I headed up to the deep and thankfully deep end.

Trying to catch perch in a lake stuffed full of carp is a fine balancing act. Attractant is a must, but too much and your swim will be ruined when the carp turn up. So with this in mind, a few chopped worms were mixed into some maggots and lightly scattered into my own margin close to a semi submersed dead branch. It didn't take long for the intoxicating scent of the worms and hypnotic sight of falling maggots to attract some half-right attention.

I never think small fish being attracted to your bait is a bad thing when you're after perch, especially when fishing as clear a venue as this. The occasional bob here and there informed me of their constant presence and kept me confident they could bring in some perch. Even with fish in the swim my float never actually indicated a proper bite until just before dusk when a random hybrid zipped off with my bait. Undeterred, I cast back onto the spot where moments later the float bobbed once then slid off slowly. At first I did think a big perch was on the cards but disappointingly the fish soon surged away with far to much power for my quarry.

The outcome was always inevitable if my lightish tackle held. It did and after several runs out into the lake a big gaping mouth appeared just off the end off my net before I landed...

Not a perch

Its always an awkward time when there's not enough light left to move and build up a new swim, and with that in mind I decided to stay put and take my chances. The perch though were a no show and hell, even if they did turn up, they would never have a look in as after that first carp four more winter coloured commons stuck there noses into my spot. The combined commotion and fuss left my ideal little perch paradise looking like the half settled foam from a pint of cheap larger.

Ultimately even though I had in a few short hours landed some very nice carp I did feel a little disappointed as the conditions were text book for big perch and it felt so right... and yet fished so wrong. But hey, no matter how hard you try and how much you want to catch a particular species you can't stop others from eating your baits, can you?

Dead weight.

Right, now I should be readying myself for a spring tench campaign? Truthfully though I can't motivate myself to get prepared and instead I find myself still perch fishing. It's not that I don't like perch fishing because I do, but in the scheme of things I never intended to fish that much for them right now. So why am I fishing for them? Well that's simple... because the door on the fishing season slammed shut two weeks ago and as this sort of weather is best suited for chubbing on rivers it's a simple case of the next best thing. So still water perch or pike it is then, and as pike for some reason don't concern me right now hence perch it is!

Anyway, the other day I was doing a job not so far from a small secluded fishery that has been on my radar for a while in regards to perch, and being as I was already there and that the light of late seems to last a little longer, I felt a few hours into dusk might be nice.

I knew I would be pushing my luck with the fishery owner but I have got to know him recently and if I was the only one around he might be open to the idea of me staying a little later than the norm. So after getting my job done quickly I found myself parking my van and rooting out the light outfit I had hidden away in the back.
As predicted I was the only angler present and given the still freezing north easterly wind cutting across the countryside I was also the least sane. Even before I got there I knew I fancied fishing a slightly deeper area of the water where nearly five feet is found right under the bank.

Having little more than two hours to hand, baiting had been rattling round in my head all day. I did not want to over feed the swim with a large deposit of bait and then risk the chance that although my feed may attract fish they might not find my hook bait in time. Conversely a single hook bait to my mind offered no attraction at all, so I decided to just feed a small amount of chopped goodies on arrival and hope that scant scent might garner some attention.
Given the current weather I knew I was fishing an outside chance here, so all I could do was have faith and wait. It took nearly forty five minutes for the float to move and when it did, it did so very slightly  A tiny single bob heralded the float moving as if the tow had caught it. It was a fish, and a perch, but at maybe six ounces it was one the smallest I have encountered so far.
The church bell in the village across the fields sounded before I had another repeat performance. Exactly the same bob and slide resulted in a monster by comparison  Over a pound and young - this was getting towards being what I wanted, but time was drifting away quickly to catch it.

The whole swim seemed dead as the light went and nowhere across the water was there any signs of topping fish. I knew it was getting to that time and I knew I was in pushing my luck territory with the owner, but as always I stuck on. All my gear was packed back into my bag and all I had to do was stow my rod and leave. Then through the gloom the float bobbed once hard, sinking it halfway up the bristle. I waited for that float to move a millimetre but it never did. Whatever it was had had second thoughts. I left the bait in the water hoping it would come back knowing where that lovely juicy worm was, but after five minutes I knew time was up and I needed to be off.

Finally I moved and sat up in my chair, arching my stiff back as I said to myself  'come on lets get off', then I picked up my rod to reel in. As I did, the rod bent over and I realised I was snagged solid on the bottom. Not wanting to lose my recently acquired handmade float, I pulled gently upwards and slowly the snag pulled free.
It felt like the same sensation I, and every other angler has felt before, like a small branch is slowly rising in the water  You can imagine how shocked I was then when it wasn't a rotten old stick that broke the surface but a bright red tail!!!

Everything went into slow motion instantly. The tail appeared, then a pale green flank and a white belly. Before I knew it I was staring down at a massive perch, which was just lying still on the top no more than four feet away. That's when I spotted what had happened  My worm at one end was firmly within the giants mouth and the rest of it was taught across the fishes face like half a moustache  My hook was not hooked in its lips or mouth for that matter, but was caught lightly on its gill plate. Then it dawned on me that the fish had grabbed my bait, but in its torpid state hadn't moved anywhere with it. Then I, thinking it was twig, had quite gently and without striking, slowly raised it off the bottom without rousing any suspicion that it was on the move, and now there it lay on the surface a dead weight, with me staring at it in the cold night air.
The only choice as far as my flapping mind could muster was to quietly pick up my landing net and try and slip it under with out breaking the giants trance. Barely moving, the net was in hand and I slowly swung it over the water ready slide the fish in. The perch never moved a muscle until that net touched the water when it's eye opened wide with panic and with a single shake of its head I watched my hook fly free. After hovering for a split second it was gone in a single oily swirl.

Quite honestly that was the biggest perch I have had on the end of my line, and there I was standing there gawking in the half light having just watched the perch of a life-time swim back to the depths to sulk after being so cruelly tricked.
All the way home I thought about that moment before I remembered doing the same to a carp on a roasting summers day. That fish I found mooning under a blackberry bush in the midday sun. On that occasion I placed a crust right in front of it's nose and the wind blew straight into it's mouth. Expecting the fish to bolt when it felt my line, I concluded the hook had come free of the bait, so quietly I retrieved my line so as to cast again, but the line was solid. Before I even knew what was happening, the carp was slowly moving side ways towards me. That fish too went berserk when the net hit the water. The only difference was that one had the hook in its mouth not its gill plate.

I suppose the only way to think of it is like tickling trout, but like tickling trout it's not exactly the done thing and even if I would've landed that perch I could never have claimed it as a PB. Oh, and how big do I think it was? Well let's just say I have a good idea of what a big perch is, and this fish was a pound bigger than that.

Oh that will be a unicorn then!

I fished next to a patch of wild sown daffodils the other day. That might not seem especially poignant, but I can assure you that it is! As only last week I sat fished next to the very same patch of wild sown daffodils. Fishing in that same spot on two occasions lead me to the very realisation that made this innocuous patch of flowers poignant, and what that poignant realisation was was: in the period of supposedly one spring week those daffodils had not grown so much as a millimetre. I could have put a ruler next to them and taken a picture on both visits and quite honestly I would of had a perfect and impossible spot the difference competition ready made. There had been zero progression on their part whatsoever. No height, no width and certainly no marked movement towards flowering. Their yellow treasure remained hidden within.

One thing that had changed though over the past week was the colour of the canal. It had gone from a nice hint of greenish brown to muddy flood water brown, and now resembled the colour of my Gran's tea. I am not exactly sure where it is, but I suspect somewhere not too far from where I was fishing there must be a brook or stream that spews filthy flood water into this canal when rain falls, and the river rises and ruins the fishing something terrible.

A month or so ago I walked away from this section of canal when it was like this but after last weeks superlative performance, I really thought that even in these terrible conditions the perch would still be in the mood for a feed. I stuck with it and confidently feed the nearside shelf with a slightly more potent mix of freebies than normal to help the fish locate my bait.

Turned out my confidence was ill founded and the perch were in no mood to feed at all. Whether they weren't able to detect my bait due to the turgid water or whether they were just off the feed I did not know, but after two hours my new handmade float had not ventured below the surface once.

When you find yourself in the situation when you have had no action and have resigned yourself to the belief that you will encounter no action, when something does happen you automatically think it is not say a bite, but is instead something else like the wind, or tow, which is now moving your float.
That is exactly where my thoughts had gone when my float began a merry dance. Bites here consist constantly of bob and sink, not a pirouette and drift!  When a bite does not fit the norm I often worry that an early strike might ruin my only chance of the day. This case was no different as I delayed, rod in hand, waiting for something more extreme than a rotation. The moment it dipped even slightly I panicked and struck into a familiar weight but unfamiliar fight...

I could not truthfully estimate the number of perch I have caught on this stretch of canal. What I could say is that being that all related they generally look very similar and for the most part all fight in the same way. This as yet unseen fish was not fighting that way and was instead boring all over the swim quickly and violently. Amid the hordes of perch and zander I have caught over the years, two bream and one roach bream hybrid have been landed amoungst them. The latter of which was what I expected this would be when  flash of silver was sighted as it rolled just before it went in the net.
But how surprised was I when I opened the folds of the net to find no mangy hybrid but instead a perfect unicorn.

Rare mythical unicorn-like big roach are rumoured  to exist in this percidae dominated canal but until now I have never seen one. Once I thought I saw a shoal of small roach dappling the canal one summers night but I put that down as a mirage or a hallucination. Then out of the blue I go and catch a great big fat pristine one in the worst possible conditions.

The rumours now become even more pressing as this, my first roach caught here, weighed one pound five ounces and they are fabled to go grow right up to that most special of weights for roach, two pounds. Now with the general Jurassic nature of the perch round these parts I believe that maybe the roach that survive the hungry horde should be left with enough food to attain such weights, and seeing this fish just makes me believe it even more.

With that fish released far way from my swim and still in a state of  rutilus shock I cast out again only receive two more tepid and shy bites that never developed into anything. There was more than one roach there for sure but no more became confident enough to suck in the mess of lob worm I was presenting. And then it began to snow badly.

I have fished in a few snow showers before and this, like every other one I have not been prepared for, was punishing. Tucked under my brolly the air temperature plummeted as my umbrella became weighed down by the accumulating snow, and I began to shiver. Over the last few weeks my many layers of clothing have reduced here and there by one item at a time, and I was regretting discarding every one hunkered next to the cut.

The blizzard eventually stopped and for a while the sun showed its face long enough to melt any settled snow and for a single average perch  to show up, before I slipped off home with the thoughts of big roach to occupy my mind as I warmed by the fire.

Amazing dace how sweet thou art.

Spring is knocking on our door and it's signs speedily increase, but the frost still forms on the chilly March nights and in the last remnants of dark the world sparkles white. During the daylight the early suns soothing rays dry deep every tarmac road of an entire Winters worth of damp, leaving them white with salt dust. It's those powder white, half light highways in which I speed to try and beat the rising sun to the river. The end of the season fast approaches and after a maddening winter not ability to pay the attention I wanted to the river, I now feel if I must take every chance I get to spend whatever time I can casting onto running water before the last hour comes.

Four different people on five different occasions boasted to me only the day before that the Avon was in perfect condition. Winter green, clear and with the just the right bit of colour. It always sounds contradictory when I hear people say that the river is clear with just the right amount of colour, but I know exactly what they mean and so does any other angler worth their merit. I for one believe it is that rare state where the water has the perfect combination of good visibility so the fish see every morsel from a good way ahead, whilst the having adequate colour to enable them to feed confidently even during the brightest of days. Its ironic however that the rivers attain this perfect nirvana-like state just as the season ends.

It's about this time that the Avon's dace population find optimum condition, ready for the temperature to become constant enough for them to spawn. That's still a little way off so they are still feeding hard, and happy coincidence means that I just happen to know where probably the best dace fishing is to be had on the entire Warwickshire Avon. Only problem is... I am not the only one who knows this information, hence my need to get to the river before first light.

This ever popular section is only really fishable at the tail end of the season. During Summer the banks are so overgrown that you would need a machete just to access the river and it would hardly be worth it anyway. You see when Winter comes and the temperatures drop, the majority of the rivers dace and roach seem to drop downstream from miles and stack up in this deep slow section forming a bonanza ready for the taking, much like the sockeye of North America.

Is not the smell of a weir in the half light the most intoxicating scent? With the wind in the right direction that very specific smell can be detected miles away from the waters edge. That wondrous aroma licked round the corner, down the alley through the dank and went straight up my nose, and in one quick sniff, I knew it was going to be a good day on the Avon before I had even left the car park. 

Every time I come to this bit of river and cast out my feeder I wait expectantly with a hint of worry, even though I know that as long as Winter is cold and I have bait the fish will more than likely bite. You see nine times in ten the fishing is insane, but that one time it is not it is the worst kind of dire, and trust me, this stretch on a bad day is the exact opposite of it's many good days.

Worry was soon abated when two casts in the first bite came. From then on in it never stopped for one moment; every feeder load of grubs was eaten with nothing less than gay abandon  At first it was little roach that viciously pecked at my maggots, then after a while the dace began to show. Small ones first, then not long after that they began to grow in size.

Hitting dace bites using a quiver tip is never easy and truthfully sixty or more percent are missed. But my theory on this has held me in good stead for many years fishing this particular area. Yes, fishing the stick or waggler as many of the match style anglers do undoubtedly converts more bites into fish, but while this will put together a match winning bag it does pander to the smaller fish. Undeniably bigger ones do get caught, but probably on a ratio of  ten little ones to one big one, on the float. 

Using the feeder those little dips of the float caused by smaller fish never enter in the equation. You never strike the trembles or slight nods: you just wait for a convincing bite, hit it, and more than fifty percent of the time it's a better fish for sure.

Sport was fast and furious and the speed in which my maggots were dwindling reflected that. It was about this time that Andy who was downstream encountered some action on the pike rod he had cast in the margin. 

I watched him strike, play and land the fish before venturing over to have a look and offer help if it was needed. He had the nice plump double well under control so being surplus to requirement I slipped off to have a quick cast before he wanted a picture taking.

The tiny hook re-baited I flicked the feeder underarm using physical memory, straight onto the line I had hit all morning. I felt it drift down to the soft bottom with a muted thump before resting the rod on the butterfly rest and my knee. The other day I talked to a friend about those times when you instinctively hit a bite; seeing the rod tip begin to move in a way that countless previous experiences tells you will be a proper bite, and striking before it has had time to develop. This was exactly what I did. This whole minute may well be one of those few perfect minutes of my angling life. One cast into exactly the right spot. One bite which was detected instantly and reacted to before it happened. Then that heavier pressure than I'd felt all day followed a long bar of silver rotating towards the bank. No dallying, no losses, just straight into the net in one shot. A PB dace!

I looked at in the net and called out to a distracted Andy that it was a big dace. He though had just freed up his pike and was getting ready for me, who was in that heady PB zone, to come and do the camera job on his pike. That done I went back and took a second look. That was when a hint of doubt came into my mind and I thought maybe it was a little chub. I have had a few that I would describe as decent dace, but this thing was in a different league and I think that's what threw me at first. It took two hands to hold the wiry critter; it's features were not like all the others I had caught. Instead of solid silver it had different tones of colour. A dark back fading into a silver belly, it had a huge mouth and was wide across its back.

I know anyone who has reads this who fishes any Southern rivers might think I am over reacting to what they think is not that special of a dace. But for the Warwickshire Avon this is a absolute monster the likes of which I have never seen before. The shot of the fish in my big old ham hock hands really did not show the fish for how big and fat it actually was, so this mat shot shows her for the kipper she was. 

Ten inches long, pigeon chested and with a stomach like Pavarotti. She was with all the best possible meanings an absolute hog of a dace, and luckily for me I had my digital mini species scales to weigh her on.
The plastic box I have been using to hold my captures on the scales was only a little over eight inches long so the poor girl found herself a little bent in there whilst the scales recorded her weigh,t and my new PB, at 12oz plus.

After that capture the keenness was taken from my cast. I often feel like this when I land a big fish, like I should just stop fishing and bask in the afterglow of a great capture, not sully the moment by casting again. But I never can not cast again as my whole ethos is based on the fact that I cannot have caught the biggest fish out there. On this occasion I should have stopped and gone home. The bites withered away as did my attention and soon I wandered off upstream for a few casts in another reputable spot.

Although well populated by anglers it seemed they were having a fruitless time, bar a few small silvers. So I soon wandered back to find Andy about to chip off, and Keith who had slipped in my swim working hard for bites.

Later myself and Keith wandered off downstream to explore what I can only describe as the oldest looking bit of the Avon I have ever fished. Sitting under the sandstone cliffs in the warm winter sun feeling for the tug of a perch as it picked up my worm, the question of how long it took the river to carve that stone down from the fifty feet peak of the cliff to where I sat was mind boggling. Jeff has often written about how spooky this place is at night and I was beginning to realise what made it feel that way. It is its age! The slip of land that surrounds that river has probably not changed for thousands of years. The cliff above has, as have the fields that flank it, but the bit where I was sat couldn't due to its geography  How many other anglers had sat aside this river searching for a fat perch dangling a worm I can't imagine. Anglers, like those dace, have probably been returning to these same few fields for hundreds of years and I know that I, like many, will continue this tradition come what may so next year I will be back.

Pleasing percidaes

Sunday Morning I joined forces with Andy to have a session on a section of canal that is rumoured to have produced some very large roach recently. Meeting in a lay by in the dark early on Sunday morning it felt very clandestine but eventually Andy arrived little late after a bit of a bait disaster at home.

I always approach a new section of canal with a little trepidation as in my opinion it inevitably goes one of two ways! Mine and Andy's approach for the day was pole fishing bread punch down the track, though I did feed a second line with a generous helping of chopped worm in a different area and chucked out a dead bait under a float near the far bank, both as back ups in case the roach fishing did not go well.

After a bite less hour I had no confidence that the bread punch was going to produce at all, as between the two of us we only one roach to show for our efforts which Andy had caught, and that was smaller than the dead bait I had hooked on my predator rig earlier. Moving onto my chopped worm line turned out to be the best decision I have made in a good many years of fishing and after a small perch grabbed my worm hook bait on the drop on my first put in, my second resulted in a perch ten times bigger than the first. Seeing the fish in the net my eyes were bulging and I quickly slipped it into the keep net to see if any more were hanging around.

They were! and by cupping copious amounts of bait in every time the bites began to dwindle, the perch kept coming. Half way through the morning from the corner of my eye I saw the dead bait float start bobbing before moving off slowly. After waiting an age for the bite to develop my strike pulled the bait clean out of the water. But I knew only too well if it was, as I suspected a zander, a second run was not that far away and it wasn't. This time a mental zed tried it's best to throw my hook thrashing around on the top. On the bank it turned out to be the angriest Zander I have ever encountered which turned out to be rather a help when we had our picture taken together and it posed a treat.

I did land a second Zander of a pound which took a huge lob worm on the perch line that stunted the perch sport. By dinner time my bait was gone and the only thing left to do was pull the net and go mad with the camera as opportunities like these don't come round every time we go fishing!

Eight fat perch, four over a pound.

All the big ones were undoubtedly related.

The two biggest, the top fish was just scraping 2lb and the bottom fish was a fraction over 2lb.