Autumn Break (part 2)

The second day saw we heading back to the still water for more perch (hopefully) action.

My mood was somewhat better that the previous day, as I ventured out of the house, the sky was clear and with the weatherman saying no rain, I hoped for a better day.

I arrived at the still water in the early morning gloom and like a rat up a drain pipe I was soon settling into a my favourite swim before the normal mid week matchmen had even had their cornflakes.

Fishing was to be simple today, air injected lobworm on one rod under the snaggy willow. And chopped worm maggot combo on the float by the lily pads.

The plan for the snaggy rod was to sit it out in the hope that the resident big perch would find the large lobworm before the carp in the lake became active.

The float rod which was to be fished next to the lilies was to be the line that I would work during the day and present bigger and bigger baits after seeing off some of the small roach and perch.

A half kilo of worm crumb was soon mixed up with a couple of shots of worm juice to spice it up, this was fed into the lilies at 10 min intervals to entice the perch into the area. This was topped up with some micro pellets in order to get the small roach going and cause some activity in the swim.

The float soon dipped and a perch was on the end. Nothing bigger that a 6oz, but it was a start.

This was soon added two with a further few similar sized perch

The sun was starting to rise and the cockerel on the farm starting to crow. The float bobbed and very slowly slid away. After a spirited fight which involved the  fish trying to get to the lilies and a spikey fin broke the surface of the lake.

It was a decent sized perch that warranted weighting, was it going to be a 2lb fish?

At 1lb 11oz, it wasn't one of the bigger fish that I seen, but a very nice fish.

I slid this fine perch away from the swim and returned to the float. More perch followed and an occasional roach soon came to the worm/maggot combo before the carp became active.

I did manage another 1lb+ perch in the later stages of the morning, but with the carp now crashing about the swim and happily taken any bait put in font of them, I decided to retire home early with the warm autumn sun happy in the knowledge that I'm starting to crack open the hidden gems in this lake.