Winter Perch fishing

This weekend I fancied a change from Carp, and as the weather has taken on a proper chill of late I decided to target some winter Perch. Fortunately as a by product of my local fishing clubs stocking policies, several of their waters hold an excellent head of big Perch, with many of them running to well over two pounds and a small number surpassing the three pound mark. I made it a social event with my son and his friend so they too could enjoy the good sport that is on offer. As it turned out conditions were not ideal for our target species as the sun decided to put in an appearance, and as anyone who has any Perch fishing experience will know, Perch do not feed well under a bright sky. Despite the far from ideal conditions we were still hopeful of a few fish, as we knew that once the sun set later in the day we would have around an hour when the Perch would take advantage of the falling light conditions and have a good feed. As it turned out, a band of cloud came to our rescue lowering the light levels and triggering an early feeding spell. Both the boys and myself managed a few nice fish with each of us landing specimens over two pounds, my son managed the biggest of the day at two pounds seven ounces.

Number one Son showing his skills with a 2lb 7oz specimen

 

 

 



We returned the following day, just my Son and I for a Dad and lad day and again we managed some cracking specimens to over two pounds. Bright conditions again made the sport patchy until later in the day when the light levels began to drop. The last hour or so was just crazy, and wherever we lowered the baits in they were almost instantly grabbed by a Perch. The fish must have fed well into dark as we were still getting takes when we could barely see the floats anymore and I daresay we could have carried on catching, had we the means of seeing the bites. This might be something we have to experiment with as it may be the case that the really big fish, the three plussers will come out after dark. Perch being a predator, like their Saltwater cousins the Bass, have incredible eyesight, far superior to that of their prey which gives them the advantage in low light conditions, and like Bass they are able to spot prey far beyond what you might believe. I may go into more detail about the set up I like to use for Perch at some later date, but basically I like to use a float paternoster set up with one or two little personal touches that I feel work well for me.

Pick of the bunch for me, but we had many fish of a similar size over the two days.

 

 

I'm looking forward to having a few more goes to see if I can net a three pounder, I know they are there to be had because I've caught some from these waters before. I will of course still be having a dabble for the Carp now and again over the course of the winter as I have a target of a 20lb plus winter Common...