Amazing autumn action targeting Perch!

A couple of years ago, Dad and I picked up our boat from it’s mooring on the Thames and brought it back home to fix on a new transom mount, and give it a new coat of paint on the interior. After we finished working on it, somehow, it ended up sitting in our garage until July this year, when we finally got around to taking it back down on the Thames.

Having not been on the river for such a long time, our first trip was all about getting back in to the swing of things, although we actually ended up having a brilliant days fishing with crank baits. We’d been really looking forward to using some of the Salmo crankbaits on the Thames, and the Bullhead, Hornet, Tiny and Lil’ Bug all worked very well, helping us boat over 60 fish that day - a mixture of Pike, Perch, and our main target, Chub.

On the next trip a week later, we explored further down the river and decided to check out an area Dad caught a 6lb 2oz Chub from a few winters ago on a twin tail, from a very high and coloured river. As we reached the area, to our surprise, we stumbled across numbers of good Chub basking on the surface, and there was one cracking fish in particular that looked over 6lb. We decided to actually leapfrog these fish as we’d spooked them slightly, and head on a bit further upstream so they could settle, then slowly drift down on to the fish, dropping the anchor where we felt it was necessary, and cast to them with small Hornets and the Tiny. The first few fish we cast to were not obliging, but then out of the blue, one slammed a 3cm Hornet, and less than 30 seconds later a 4lb+ Chub was in the net!

As we drifted down, we dropped anchor opposite a deep hole with an undercut bank, where I saw the big Chub a little while earlier. On Dad’s first cast, he had an aggressive take, which was almost too quick to hit, so he cast his 3cm Hornet back to the same spot, let it sink down under the bank, began his retrieve, and BANG! This was a big fish, and he did well to bully it away from the tree roots under the bank in what was quite a strong current. When it reached the slacker water where our boat was anchored, I scooped it in to the net and I knew it was his biggest Chub of the season so far!

Although we boated many more Chub and Perch that afternoon, Dad’s big Chub was the highlight of the day for us, and on our next trip we returned to the same area, hoping for more action. We caught a couple of smaller Chub to around 3lb 8oz, but the bigger fish were proving elusive. We did come across a huge shoal of Perch, and had some great action, landing nearly 80 of them in the space of a couple of hours! What was a nice surprise though was a pug-nosed Pike, Dad’s second from the Thames!

 

It was a bit disappointing that we didn’t manage to hook up with another big Chub, but these fish were smart, and if they aren’t in the mood to take, out-witting a big Chub, especially with lures, can be tricky. However, it was time to turn our attention to the opening of the lure fishing season on the midlands reservoirs. It looked like we weren’t going to be able to fish Grafham on the first day of the lure season, but thankfully a cancellation of a boat two days before meant we were able to keep up our ‘tradition’ of fishing the opening day of the lure fishing season there every year since 2006. It was a good idea we took that opportunity too!

On the first day we decided to target Pike. It felt strange casting 18cm Replicants after three months of casting tiny crank baits at Chub, but great at the same time. I always get the feeling that if a fish takes a lure of that size, there’s always the chance it could be big - and that’s exactly what happened on my sixth cast of the day, with a scraper 20lb+ Pike taking a Replicant in the Super Natural Zander colour. What a start!

The Super Natural Zander colour worked really well for me last year, and it seemed to be working well on this day too because I had another good hit shortly after landing that fish. I thought it was going to be another nice Pike, but the fish revealed itself to be a greedy Zander! It was certainly the biggest lure I’ve caught a Zander on, and obviously took a liking to one of its own kind!

The next few hours resulted in a couple more smaller Pike, until Dad and I came across a group of what looked like sizeable fish on the sidescan, and we assumed they were either Zander, Bream, or possibly big Perch. A switch to lighter tactics and 11cm Slick Shads was needed to provide an answer, and they turned out to be the latter! Perch of 3lb 4oz and 3lb resulted on the first couple of casts, but little did we know that we’d discovered some amazing Perch fishing, and this was to continue for the next couple of months.

I’d booked three days off work to fish the reservoirs that week, and the following two days were both half day/afternoon trips, as I needed to catch up with a few things. We mixed it up with fishing for Pike, Perch and Zander, and although we didn’t boat the same number of fish as we did on the first day, we did land some good sizes of all three species, and Dad rounded the three days fishing off with a last minute 20lb+ Pike, which took an 18cm Pro Shad.

It was the Perch fishing though that had been exceptional, and on our next few trips we concentrated on targeting stripeys. To cut a long story short, fishing a mixture of different tactics (shads, crank baits and chatter baits), we experienced some of the best Perch fishing we’ve both had over the following few trips, landing 57 over 40cm and 37 over 3lb, to 4lb.

The action was thick and fast, with regular double hookups, not to mention the odd nice Zander making an appearance too. This incredible sport continued until the water temperature reached about 12°C, when the fish started to move in to deeper water.

Switching between three completely different types of lures kept the bites coming. Fishing an 11cm Slick Shad on a straight retrieve, in a variety of different colours, was the most productive method for both Perch and Zander, but there were two other lures that really worked well too.

The Salmo Hornet 6 has also been brilliant, fished either on a straight retrieve or fished erratically on a stop-start retrieve.

If the action slowed up on the shads and crankbaits, we would try a chatterbait to see if that woke them up, and these also worked well, not just for Perch but Zander too.

It was a welcome distraction from the Pike, although we did manage to catch some in amongst fishing for the Perch and Zander. Now the cooler weather has arrived I’m looking forward to targeting Pike a bit more often - unless I get distracted by Perch and Zander again!

Back at the end of September and early October, Dad and I were privileged to be invited to flyfish the River Test with some of the guys from Farlows, on the first occasion for Salmon, and for Trout on the second trip. Our day targeting Salmon was unsuccessful, but we learnt a lot on our first trip fishing the Test, and whilst looking for Salmon, spotted some big Trout and Grayling, which we pursued on the next trip. The highlight of the second trip was Dad landing a lovely Brownie, that gave him an aerobatic fight and fought like stink on his 5wt! We also landed some Grayling, plus a Roach that beat a Brownie to the fly!

All in all, it’s been an exciting and action-packed Autumn. I was meaning to post this blog a couple of weeks ago, but ran out of time as Dad and I headed to Bosnia for a week of fishing on the Una River to target Huchen - what a stunning river the Una is! I'll write about our trip in the next couple of weeks...

Topwater summer Chubbin'!

In the weeks leading up to June 16th, I always become excited about the prospect of fishing in running water again. The same period is also a great time for flyfishing the midlands reservoirs for Pike, Perch and Zander, and with the reservoirs opening on May 16th, it makes the months of May and June one of my favourite times of year to fish in the UK.

This year we managed a few trips on the reservoirs in that month-long time period, and concentrated on fishing the shallow bays and around the weedbeds, primarily for Pike and Zander. We had a slow start on our first trip, but in the evening Dad landed his first Pike of the season, which was a cracker at 21lb 4oz and 107cm. This was shortly followed by a couple of nice Zander, one of which followed my fly right to the boat before nailing it!

Before I’d even finished setting my rod up on our second trip, Dad hooked a good Pike on his very first cast of the day, and after four follows from Pike in the first hour, we thought we’d have an action packed day ahead.

However, it took another 7 hours before we had any more fish in the boat, when we came across some Zander in around 12ft of water. Interestingly, over the next few trips we seemed to have hardly any action in the morning and early afternoon, and caught most of our fish after 4pm. There was one afternoon that, from 4pm until 8pm, produced 15 Zander - Dad’s first three fish, in total, weighed 2oz over 30lb! The action continued and at times we had double hookups - Zander put up an amazing fight on the fly, and we finished the day with three Zander over 10lb, and some of the best sport we’d enjoyed on the fly for a while.

Following on from that trip, Tom Clinton, the retail manager at Farlows, joined us for a half day trip hoping to catch his first Pike and Zander on the fly. We managed to tick off the first one, a Pike, within an hour of fishing, which put up an awesome fight on Tom’s homemade Epic 8ft 8in 8wt (or triple 8 as he calls it!)

I managed a jack Pike shortly after, and then for most of the afternoon we had no bites. As the light began to fade, Dad managed a nice Perch whilst I caught a Zander, but thankfully on his very last cast of the day, Tom hooked and landed a Zander of around 5lb!

Time flies when you’re having fun, and before we knew it, June 16th was just around the corner, and on the opening day we were keen to explore our local rivers with lures for Chub. I started the day using a Salmo Lil’ Bug, which was deadly for Chub last summer, whilst Dad started with the 5cm floating Salmo Minnow, another hardbait that has worked well for us, especially if the Chub aren’t quite up for taking lures off the surface.

On Dad’s very first cast of the day, just before 5.30am, he hooked in to what he thought was a Chub after casting his lure towards a few fish holding up below a weir, but it turned out a Pike had beaten the Chub to it! It was nice for him to catch a fish on the first cast of the day, but sadly, the disturbance had spooked the Chub. Apart from landing a small Perch and me losing a Chub, it went very quiet, so we decided to make a short drive to a club-owned stretch of river, only to find two people poaching, which was very annoying! The Chub we’d been hoping to stalk on the gravel runs were spooked and it wasn’t worth waiting around, so we decided to hop back in the car and check out another section of river, which, although looked very fishy, was very quiet, so we ended up relocating again.

At venue number four, I soon landed a nice Chub, which took a 5cm floating Minnow in Rainbow Dace. After taking a few pictures and releasing the fish, with all the walking we’d done, we were both feeling a bit tired and decided to call it a day, head home and prepare for a few hours fishing the following day.

The next day we ventured out for a few hours on the river Lea, starting at around 2pm, and we were joined again by Tom Clinton from Farlows. As we were walking along the river, Dad spotted a Carp swimming upstream. As he was watching it, it spooked a good Chub out from under some reeds, so he decided to move about 15 metres upstream and clipped on a 4cm Salmo Hornet in Trout. He cast as far as he could downstream, and then payed out some braid so the lure drifted a few more metres down, and then started retrieving, swimming it back underneath the marginal reeds. He’d almost finished his retrieve, when, from under the reeds, the Chub loomed out and took the Hornet! After a thrashing fight right under the rod tip, I quickly scooped the fish up in the net and we knew straight away it was over 5lb.

Later that afternoon, we were searching for Chub on a gravel run, when I spotted a fish that looked a lot like a Grayling. Grayling are very rare in the Lea and I had to look again as I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen - it was, indeed, a Grayling! I called Tom over and pointed the fish out to him, and as he was flyfishing, it was the perfect fish to target on the fly. He made a bow and arrow cast with his 3wt, and the Grayling took first time, but the fly came straight out of its mouth as Tom struck. The fish hadn’t spooked though, so Tom made another cast, and the Grayling took again! I slid down the bank with the net and got stung up badly by the nettles, but I didn’t care - it was a River Lea Grayling! Great going for only his second ever fish from the Lea!

I’d taken three days off work for the start of the season so that we could fish and also catch up on other things, so we ended up fishing the third day too, again just for a few hours. We visited an area where it’s sometimes possible to stalk Barbel on lures, and although we did find a few, they were very spooky and we didn’t manage to catch any. Dad spotted a good Chub though in amongst a group of Barbel, and watched it swim downstream underneath some trees. Just like the day before, he cast the 4cm Hornet as far as he could under the trees, and payed out around 5 metres of braid, before starting his retrieve. He watched the Chub come out from under the trees and smash the Hornet, almost identical to the take he’d had from the 5lb’er the day before - only this one was bigger!

After checking out other parts of the river, I spotted two Chub together in a snaggy area, so I clipped on a 7cm Rage Critter and cast in front of the fish. Thankfully, the larger of the two snapped it up and it turned out to be another 5lb+ Chub! Apart from a small Perch, that was all we caught, but it was nice that we’d both ended the session with a good Chub each.

We had to wait until the following week before the next trip, and again, they were just a couple of short sessions. The Barbel that had frustrated us the week before were our main target, and on my very first cast of the day, I managed to stalk a nice Barbel of around 5lb on a creature bait rigged on a 3g jig head. That was the only Barbel we caught from that section, but a couple of hours later, on a different section of river, Dad also managed to stalk a Barbel, which was a slightly bigger fish that weighed 6lb 1oz. It was an awesome take (one of the most aggressive I’ve seen from a Barbel) and a great fight!

We ventured further upstream and Dad spotted the tail of what he thought was a good Chub. He couldn’t see its head and it was in a really awkward spot, laying under some streamer weed. He dropped his creature bait through a tiny gap in the streamer weed, and watched the tail accelerate forward, so he struck and all hell broke loose! After a crazy aerobatic fight, he landed one of the best looking Brown Trout I’ve ever seen from our local rivers! As it was really hot we didn’t want to keep it out of the water for too long (famous last words), so we prepared for some quick photos. As he held the fish up to the camera, it leaped out of his hands and straight back in the river! Luckily, I’d just managed to shoot one photo!

Two more Chub that took 3cm Hornets in Trout completed a great afternoon!

At the end of July, we decided to explore a river that neither of us had fished for several years, but we were keen to see what it was like and if there were any big Chub there that would be up for taking lures. We spotted some very big fish, and although we couldn’t tempt any, we did land quite a few small Chub on the new 2cm Lil’ Bug. What we also spotted, which was very good to see, were three Eels - one of them was actually stalking a shoal of Minnows on a gravel run, and it was hiding under the rocks and streamer weed waiting to pounce, which was fascinating to watch! I actually tried to stalk it on a Rage Micro Grub, as I’ve never caught an Eel on a lure before - it did go for it, but as it took, I struck and the lure came flying out of it’s mouth!

A week later we returned, and although we didn’t see the same number of big Chub as we did on the first trip, I did manage to tempt one nice fish in to taking a Lil’ Bug. Although it wasn’t a monster, it's hard to beat fishing for them topwater - it followed the Lil' Bug for about five feet, before absolutely wolfing it off the surface!

We’d planned our next trip to be on the Thames, but looking at the forecast (predicting thunderstorms and heavy downpours) we decided to postpone it for another day, and instead tried a different section of river we hadn't fished for maybe five years. Dad got off to a great start with a 5lb+ surface caught Chub on his first cast of the day! Around an hour later I had a brilliant take off the surface too, and netted another 5lb'er! We had a few more opportunities at Chub, but unfortunately they didn't quite want to take, before the heavens opened and we decided to call it a day.

After the storms, the weather cooled down, and we both thought it might be an ideal time to have a trip back to a reservoir flyfishing for predators. Not only that, we were keen to try out a new fly rod. Over the past two or three years, my Dad has suffered from tennis elbow, which he now has in both arms, so to make casting a bit more bearable, we treated ourselves to a new 9ft 9wt. Whilst I started fishing with my Sage TCR, Dad set up our new toy - a Scott Meridian 9’ 9wt, which is super light, and has a slower action than my TCR and his 9’ 9wt Sage TCX, and we were hoping it would make casting heavy lines less tiring.

It took a while to catch our first fish, but Dad boated the first fish of the day, and christened the rod in style with a 43cm Perch, weighing 3lb 4oz!

By the end of the day we’d managed to boat a ‘Grafham Grand Slam’ between us - Pike, Perch and Zander. We were super impressed with the rod, and we’re both looking forward to using it again!

Earlier this month we managed to get our boat back down on the Thames again. We’ve had a few trips there over the last month, but this blog post is getting a bit long now - so I’ll save that for next time!