Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

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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).

Selecting for perch.

I'm not sure why I enjoy catching perch but I do. They aren't particularly large and they don't battle very hard - more of a bump, bump, on the rod than a screaming run. Nevertheless they are beautiful fish and they present something of a challenge because small ones are so keen to take the bait. If I fish a plug or a spinner in my local rivers then it is often a toss up whether the next bite will come from a perch, a chub, a trout or a pike so sometimes it's good to try and select for just one of these species.

Anyway, the other day I decided to try and catch only perch. Instead of my usual plug I opted to try live baits so I took along a second rod armed with a float and a small hook to provide me with some small fish. I managed a tiny roach and a very small chub then the mini-perch began to bite so I decided to try and catch minnows. This proved very easy and, sure enough, as soon as a I put a minnow on the hook I had a perch bite. Interestingly (I think I've mentioned this before at some time) a dead minnow does not hold the same attraction, even if its twitched and twiddled. Anyway, the problem was that the perch were small. Wherever I tried - pools, glides, deeps and shallows, it made no difference, within seconds a two ounce perch would engulf the minnow and hook itself on my little circle hook. This was despite the 15lb wire anti-pike trace that I had on my paternoster. The only respite from catching little perch was one jack but, fortunately it was nicely lip hooked as it should have been. At least I, more or less, managed to achieve the aim of selecting for perch with my tactics.

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

Perch.

Believe it or not this was one of my better fish.

Jack.

Notice how nicely it is hooked on the circle hook.

Another perch.

I landed sixty or seventy fish but there was no point taking their pictures because they all looked the same.