Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

Information Page

Freshwater Fishing

For anyone unfamiliar with the site always check the FRESHWATER, SALTWATER and TACK-TICS pages. The Saltwater page now extends back as a record of over several years of (mostly) sea fishing and may be a useful guide as to when to fish. The Freshwater stuff is also up to date now. I keep adding to both. These pages are effectively my diary and the latest will usually be about fishing in the previous day or two. As you see I also add the odd piece from my friends and correspondents if I've not been doing much. The Tactics pages which are chiefly 'how I do it' plus a bit of science are also updated regularly and (I think) worth a read (the earlier ones are mostly tackle and 'how to do it' stuff).

Pike but no perch.

Today's story is about two trips. The first was in search of perch on a pleasant day and was almost a total failure. The second was on a very cold day (the temperature had suddenly dropped). On this occasion I was simply playing with a big, weedless soft plastic lure that I'd made and I was well pleased to get one bite and catch the culprit.

This week we had a series of relatively mild, dry days and I decided that it might be worth trying for perch in the river. As it turned out my live minnows proved useless. I tried under the sill of the weir, in deep pools and round the roots of trees but never had a sniff - from a perch. After half-an-hour of fruitless dangling I did get a bite and hooked a pike of a few pounds but as I was playing it the small circle hook came unstuck before I could get a picture. After fishing a few more spots I switched to a J11 Rapala but it was no more effective than the livebaits. Eventually I did hook a fish but again it was a pike, even smaller than the one I'd lost.

A couple of days later I had another trip. As I say, on this occasion there had been a sudden, drastic fall in temperature so I wasn't hopeful. I decided to use the opprtunity to try out a large weedless hybrid of a Slug-Go with a paddle tail. The lure worked very well. It had a nice waggle and because of the weight of plastic it sank at a reasonable rate. I fished it very slowly and the tail wagged nicely. After walking about a mile I met Marina who was looking for tagged pike in a reedy ditch. She uses a remote ensing device on a long pole, really hard on the back, and said that she'd found a few of the young, tagged pike. I had no bites on my plastic lure until I was almost ready to pack in. I cast right across a wide, deep stretch and drew the lure, at snails pace, across near the riverbed. Suddenly there was a lunging bite and I was in - just like a bass on a Slandra.

I played and landed the fish and managed to get one or two pictures. All in all a very satisfactory session for an unpromisingly cold day.

If you have any comments or questions about fish, methods, tactics or 'what have you!' get in touch with me by sending an E-MAIL to - docladle@hotmail.com

Not a perch.

Landed.

Marina.

Giddup!

Tired.

The lure