A perch from the river.

[MrMakk]

With the bank holiday weekend over and the trains running full again, yesterday I decided to grab the lure gear and bugger off to the canal and the possibly the R.Trent (dependant on condition with the recent thunderstorms) for a session. In the morning, I gave Dazz a call and told him to join me if he can and he told me that he'd try and get an hour or so. By around 10:45am I got to the section of the canal where I geared myself up, I clipped on a Savage Gear prey lure and after half an hour of casting with it, I noticed it started to float at the tail end. So i clipped on a different lure and got back to fishing, by around 11:45am Dazz caught up with me he hadn't brough his gear but was happy enough to join me as company. I got fed up of the current lure and decided another switch, this time with a spro BBZ-1 shad, first cast and not a sign second cast gave a swirl, and my intial thoughs were that I'd either spooked a fish i.e chub/carp etc, or that a pike had missed the lure completly after it's stike at it. as we moved down I kept casting lures in every spot that looked like a fish was lurking belowI managed to loose a storm wildeye shad to a snag but We made our way to the trent to have a crack there, although the conditions seemed nice, the amout on weed that was being caught on every cast could have filled my tropical aquaruim.



After each time I moved from peg to peg and at each cast I kept getting weed, a while later as I was along the R.Trent, I swapped the lure for a HRT perch crankbait availble from AGM discount tackle.



I then done another cast and once again I caught weed, well I was proven wrong by the 'weed' tugging back. I then said to Dazz ''fish on'' and he scrambled for my net behind me, my mind was ticking away with the though of what fish I had on at the end of the line tugging away pike, perch, chub, zander? With a distinct flash of green and orange as i was playing the fish I knew instantly it is a perch.

At the scales this perch came to 2lb, Dazz instantly remarked on how the bigger perch seemes to have the hunchback, anyway enough of that heres the pics.





well what a lovely fish? I carried on fishing the R.Trent for an extra hour until around 3:30pm then we headed back up the canal, dazz parted his way and I carried on hoping for another fish to add on todays list but nothing. I managed to get home to a pot of curry & rice for around 5:30pm

all in all an enjoyable day with a nice fish to save from a blank.

Alex,

also in the blog :- http://www.alexmakkfishing.com/

[keithdog]

Thats an awsome perch Alex! Very nice coloring too. Congrats. I'd love to take home a dozen just like it. Are prech common where you fish?

[bamabassman]

fantastic alex!!! never seen a perch with a hunchback before. awesum for real.

[MrMakk]

Ta lads,
It depends some rivers have perch this size as a common and other not so.

I guess our perch grow different to your species, with the hunchback once matured etc.

[lilmule]

Actually while the european perch has more of a hump,even our yellow perch have it just not as pronounced and one sees it better when a large specimen is caught.

Oddly locals here keep small bluegills and toss them back when twice as large,they are good eating.I only catch them normally in the fall when they come in shallower.

[Bassboss]

Thats a darn big perch by my standards! Congrats, nice looking crankbait ya got there too!

[nobass]

nice looking perch never have seen one that big