PERNICKETY PERCH

     Perch don't suck at maggots like roach do; their mouths just aren't made to do it. They are predators first and foremost with the tools to do the job and until this cold weather set in, I hadn't realised just how subtly and delicately they can feed.

     I wasn't after Perch at all really although I'll always gladly take whatever comes. Fishing a single maggot on a 20 hook on a 1.3 lbs hooklength was intended to keep me catching Roach from the lake when the conditions became difficult. There was undoubtedly an element of challenge and obstinacy at play here as well, rather in the same vein as my determination to continue catching fish on canals when the boats are moving.

 
     On my last visit, the bites took me by surprise they were so slow, positive but very slow, and it had soon become apparent that striking too early was a fruitless exercise. If anything, today was worse. Once again, it was two hours of regular casting, flicking half a dozen maggots around the float each time, before the float slowly submerged for the first time. It almost felt like the fish were there but that their reluctance to feed was ground down by the steady trickle of bait falling past their noses. As a foretaste of things to come, I hooked and lost my first fish. It felt decent and the next bite gave me a clue to the culprit. It was my first and smallest fish of the day, a perch, of just under a pound.

     It was pretty damn cold today but after that very slow start. It got better and better as the day went on and they were still feeding when I left at 2pm. Bites came at five to fifteen minute intervals. I tried leaving them for three, four or five seconds before striking with varying degrees of success.. Once while I was up the bank paying the bailiff, the float slowly sank from view. Realising I couldn't get there in time, I didn't make a dash for the rod, I merely sauntered back expecting the fish to be long gone, but arrived just as the line went tight and the tip slowly took on a curve. I landed it, but the hook fell out just as I pulled it in and the fish, now free, fortunately, dived straight into the outstretched net. On another occasion, I was not so lucky and the, now unhooked, fish just slid under the mesh and away.

 
     It wasn't just that one either. Despite delaying my strike for varying amounts of time, I lost seven good fish of a similar size to the ones that I did catch, five of which were over a pound, the largest being 1-7. In short, I could have caught fourteen today but I didn't. Hitting bites was an issue, getting a good hookhold a bigger one. Not once was the hook more than a quarter of an inch inside the mouth and I only had to unhook two because for the rest, the hook fell out in the net. I did try changing up to an 18 carrying double maggot towards the end. Bites diminished but I did land both of the fish I hooked. It wasn't a long enough trial to be definitive but I shall certainly try it again.

 
     I desperately want to get back and try again but we have a whole load of gales and torrential rain coming our way so it is odds on that as usual, conditions and commitments will get in the way. It is the angler's lot I suppose.