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 What is it about perch? One day they are in the swim, the next they are gone. You bag a few one day, and then are so perplexed, even disappointed, after a night sleepless with excitement, when you return with great anticipation….
I know a few ‘pounds’ on the Grand Union Canal near Watford that have produced stripeys to over three and a half pounds, and perhaps larger have been caught and not publicised.
I have fished and searched every inch of the water with lures, with twitched lobworm on a light link leger, with maggot under a float – and I have used both live and deadbaits over the years. But I have never found a ‘biggy’. A biggy in my book being, on this section of canal at least, which is relatively featureless apart from a few overhanging trees, as being over two pounds. Yes, I know, with perch now hitting national headlines to weights in excess of six pounds (and quite right, in my book, that THAT Marina record has been thrown out by the BFRC) a two is a pretty small fish. Wrong. A two pound perch is a big perch, from any water and many an angler will never catch one in a lifetime of fishing.
With the river season over, I was happy to have a break having fished hard during March during the usual end of season must-get-out-there panic But I have managed now to pick up my fly rod and tempt some nice browns from the old River Lea near Hertford… but that’s another yarn for another wet day.
I do get fidgety; I never used to fish the traditional close season… but now, if the law allows it, and the rivers and streams remained rested, I am all for fishing the canal, perhaps even drop a line in the margins of my club lakes for an early season tinca or hard fighting carp.
I know, I thought, let’s have a go in the old perch swims. I quickly made up a light float rod and ran some fresh 2-10 Powerline on a beautiful Paul Witcher centrepin. Mate ‘Mole’ had given me a few hundred lobs when we met on the Lea on the last day of the season – time to use a few and disturb them from their mossy lair in the garage.
First cast the float sailed away almost instantly the worm hit the deck, at first light.. it was a good start, a stripey of a pound and nine ounces (pictured above at top of article with the worm that offended his dignity) .Within minutes the float was away again, a lob and a half on a size 12, tipped with double red maggot. One pound 13 ounces – nearly a two. A fabulous start. And now it was snowing, on a mid March Saturday morning. Three other sergeants followed from the same swim, the same spot and all caught hard on the bottom. All over a pound to 1lb 8ozs. Then, as I was drinking the last of my coffee and thinking it was time for home and some breakfast, the float slammed under and line tore off the pin.. Hello, a chub. But no, it felt more like a stripey, though this one bore deep and headed off up the pound towards the lock gates. It remained deep and returned only slowly, indignantly, and grudgingly, against maximum pressure; well the max pressure that can be applied on a 1-14 bottom.
I eased it towards me; it was a spirited fight. And with no snags for it to run to, he (or she?) was mine.. at a personal best weight of 2lbs 13 ounces.
A big fish.. by canal standards. I fished on with renewed energy and enthusiasm, but it was bitterly cold and by now snowing quite hard.
My Saturday morning was complete and I was pleased I had had enough ( to coin as old Fred J Taylor phrase) and could go home.
A restless night followed for I still had a tonne ( or was it a ton for I am traditional at heart) of lobs and a yearning for more perch. Sunday dawned and I was there again, already playing a perch of well over the pound. It was a brief two hour session and I was joined by friend Mike who came along for an early mroning chat, and to dangle his lob so to speak.
The day before I had returned each fish to the swim – had I spooked the shoal?, would I have caught more if I had netted them? To be brief, in two hours we had six sergeants, all well over the pound to one pound nine. A lovely Crabtreeesque bag, the kind of picture ( without the modern Drennan net bag as an unhooking mat to protect the fish on the stony canal towpath) that adorned the pages of our childhood fishing books.. books by Walker, dear old Fred J, now sadly and so recently parted from us - a grand old man - Tag Barnes, David Carl Forbes, Frank Guttfield… oh halcyon days.
 Twelve bristling pristine perch in two short sessions and all over the pound – the top two at 1-13 and 2-13. Marvellous.
I have returned since several times, high on expectation. Nothing. Were they shoaling up ready for spawning? Were the bait fish in residence for some reason? Were they there because of water temperature, weather conditions? Oh, the beauty and challenges of fishing.
Well, I have some watercraft skills, not an expert by a long way, but I was fishing, deliberately so where the lock overflow meanders back into the canal… carrying small food items into the narrow boat lane. And presumably bringing minnows and gudgeon into the canal in numbers. The bait fish at the small confluence picking off small food items, perhaps the three to five ounce perch picking off the fry and small fish. The bigger perch, for they were all taken to the far side of the swim, waiting to take some of the smaller perch. Was there a big three pounder at the very back of the swim that never found my lobs? Could the canal do a four pounder to rival the likes of the Ouse and Kennet which regularly produce big perch at the end of the season? A canal three is as big as any big river four pounder, if you know what I mean.
My autumn and winter fishing this season will include some canal trips to see if I can be resident at the swim when the bigger perch are also resident in the swim. I normally miss such treats.
Reminds me of my fly fishing… whenever I have ventured forth in mayfly season within Duffer’s Fortnight , when anyone can net a bag of fish because the trout are rising for anything, I usually find that it has been Duffer’s Day. No Fortnight. And it was always yesterday.
Gary Culllum
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