The session this week was one a bit different in that I didnt actually take a fishing rod with me, instead preferring to concentrate on helping Claire to catch on her rod and lures.
The rod I brought her is a telescopic Berkley light lure / jig rod, rated to 35 grams its perfect for working small lures, plugs and spinners aswell as jelly worms on jig heads.
I coupled this with a small Shimano 500 reel, which is a tiny front drag reel, light as anything, so ideal for Claire. The reel is loaded with 14lb berkley fireline braid, and traces are made from Drennan 10lb soft wire.
I was going to do away with the wire, but with the amount of pike in the Thames its probably best to keep it, as pike will bite through most materials, but not wire.
Claire's lure box is filled with small plugs, shads, worms, mepps spinners. All aimed at catching perch, which, up until now, we had failed to do.
The only real experience of catching large perch I have is a few years back up on the River Ouse, I managed to catch a couple of fish over a 1lb on spinnerbaits intended for pike in a weir pool, followed later that same afternoon by a perch of an ounce under 3lb taking a bleak that had taken my feeder fished maggots. The perch fishing that day was very good as I was catching fish of 1lb on the feeder, upto 2lb on lures and then the near '3' effectively on a livebait.
Its something I really need to do more of, perch fishing on the Ouse, its home to some monster fish.
Anyway, back to the session. We arrived early afternoon, after Claire had finished work and after resisting the temptation of taking my lure rod, I set hers up with a small bladed spinner. I then told claire where abouts to aim her casts, which, of course, she missed, lol. Its not her fault though, she is more used to fishing with a 3mtr whip!!
After about ten casts and she whacked one up the tree on the far bank! This resulted in a lost trace and lure. It didnt even "just" catch it, it was embedded half way up the tree. (Maybe she was trying to cast over the island) After tying on a new trace and attaching a larger Mepps Aglia, The casting began again, a little gingerly at first due to the lost tackle before, she was soon back in the swing of it though, cast into the shadows on the far bank.
I presumed this would be where the perch would hold up as it was out of the sun, and there were masses of fry from our margin to about half way across, so it figured the perch would be sat just past halfway in the deeper water, waiting to ambush the fry as it travelled over head.
This plan was executed perfectly when claire said her line didnt feel right when she was reeling in, looking into the water I could see a perch shaking its head to try and rid itself of the hooks.
Being the first fish properly hooked on a rod and reel by Claire is was a little confusing for her, and resulted in the perch falling off right in the edge just as I was about to pick it from the water. Ah well, 1-o to the perch!!
A few more casts resulted in nothing, so we move up a few yards, and almost straight away from over on the far bank Claire said she had hooked another one, learning from her previous mistake, she was unhurried and a bit more relaxed, bring the perch into the edge where I picked it from the water. Her first fish on a lure was on the bank, as I lifted it fron the water, Claire let out a scream, of "yes!!"
Weighing about half a pound, maybe a little more, claire was very happy with it. A couple of pics of me holding the fish (Claire has not yet got to the point of holding the fish for pictures) and it was released.
Several more casts in the same swim resulted in one more hooked and lost fish.
We fished the remaining swims, but no more action was forthcoming.
I did managed to have a couple of casts myself, the first was into a sunken branch which resulted in me losing the very lure Claire had just caught her perch on!!!
Looking into the box I had no more 10lb wire traces made up, so I had to make do with a 30lb one I had made up for my piking. Several most casts and I somehow managed to hook the same underwater branch I had lost the tackle on!! My god, what was going on!!!
Pulling for a break, I felt something give, and proceeded to pull in a branch from the underwater obstruction. To my amazement, there lodged in the branch I was pulling in was the lure I had just lost!! Claire was happy I had managed to get here now favourite lure back.
That ended the session.
The cabbage weed did not seem as pronounced as it did, a few weeks back when we fished there, I dont know if it is dying off already, it may have been due to the slight tinge of colour in the river and relative lack of sun which meant I just couldnt see into the water as I had been able to last week.
I have seen Chub right in the edge on previous ocassions, so im sure there will be carp and barbel in the area also, and so far on around 6 visits I have not seen another competant angler, plenty of kids and day "noddies" but no one that actually looks like they know what they are doing, so it might definately be an area to investigate further.
No comments:
Post a Comment