Quiet Day?

This fishing game can be hard work. Well, that's what it felt like after one particular day on my perch lake.

Up nice and early before the sun has gotten out of bed and I was by the lake side in the morning gloom with only the sounds of the farmers cockerel and his barking dog. No birds chirping nothing, the near quiet was lovely.

The target for the session was for some of the resident perch. It was perfect perch weather too. Cool,  a slight breeze and overcast. Nice.

I have been toying with various ideas and methods for getting a bait out that wouldn't be targeted by the resident carp population, so the ideal bait was either a fresh roach or rudd on one rod, whilst fishing the lobworm on the float rod in the margins.

What I hadn't envisaged was that catch a roach or rudd on this day was to be somewhat challenging, well in fact it was nearly impossible.

I started with air inject lobworm on one rod for the perch, whilst I tried to catch the bait on the other rod. But after 2 hours, I had failed to catch a single roach or rudd, so I decided that I had wasted enough time on the bait snatching and it was time to change tackle over to fish half worm/maggot combo on the float in the margin for the perch.

All started well enough with a number of small perch honing in on the wormy crumb mix, but nothing of any size. Then Mr Carp came along and then the usual fun and games ensued and after a spirited fight it was landed.

More perch followed on the float, but nothing to the other rod alas. So a change of bait was required, but what. Well I did have a dying perch in the margins, so after reading up on how perch can on some waters be caught on a dead bait, and with this little perch fitting the bill. I decided to put in on and see what happened.

Whilst, this was all happening the local juniors arrived in their normal quiet manner (not). So after explaining what I was fishing for, how I was doing it and where my baits were, they setup camp in the next door peg. So much for a quite session. The usual questions then started, what have you caught, was it very big, what bait are you using, etc, etc, etc.

With all this going on the perch had completely switched off, it could have had something to do with the bombardment of bait and rigs that was hitting the water.
So then the teach in began, how do I make this rig and how do I to tie a strong knot, oh hum. But at least they are fishing rather than on the PS3 or Xbox!

Back to my fishing, well with not a perch in sight, the carp moved in over the bait and before long I had a couple on the bank and had hooked and lost again the only double in the lake (memo to self, must catch him and see how big he actually is).

Lunch came and went in a blur, the junior were on my shoulder every time I hooked a carp. "Carp are the best" one said "No point in fishing for anything else" said another, expect one lad, Tom his name is and he is the eldest of the group and loves his perch. It was Tom's birthday the other week and he had a bumper birthday and was lucking to have parents whom managed to get him some nice new lures, chair and other bits and bobs.

Tom started to fish with the new lures and on his very first cast hooks and lands a perch of about a 1lb in the swim to my right (poacher). After landing it for him and doing the usual photo's, Tom returns to the other swim, to tell the other lads what he had caught.

The floats dipped again and its zooming off, carp number 4 on the bank. None are of any size, but they are fun of sorts on autumn day.

Whilst return the little carp to the lake, I overhear the third and smallest lad say he hasn't catch anything yet and he was thinking of heading home.
So with the carp completely ruining my perch  session, I hatched a plan, I tell the young fish less lad, that when I hook the next carp, he can play and land it.
He has to wait no longer than 10 minutes and a carp is hooked and is zooming off. The lad soon has my rod tucked underneath his arm and is playing the carp. The clutch is clicking away and the lad is happy. After what seems like an eternity, Tom slips the net expertly underneath the carp and its ours!!! We place the handsome carp on the the mat and soon the camera phones are out. Before I have even managed to slip the carp back, the lad has the picture sent via MMS to his mum, dad, sister, infact the world via facebook.

It was a real Mr Crabtree moment for me, the look on this young lads face was great, grinning for ear to ear, happy as Larry.

The rain then started, and the junior gang, decided the it was no fun fishing in the rain, and headed for home.
With the rain beating down on me to and with the brolly in the car, I had to agree with the juniors and I too decided, this young angler need to head home too.

btw, the perch deadbait remained untouched. Back to the drawing board!!