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).

Dropped fish.

After I'd been fishing with my friend Richard the other morning neither of us were satisfied with our catch. So,we each went to different places and had another go. I managed a seatrout and Richard found lots of pike and perch as well as catching a big chub and losing a trout. He emailed to suggest that we had a joint pike/perch session a couple of days later.

We arrived at the river at 06:00hr and began to fish. The river was low and gin clear with very little weed (must be a result of last winter's heavy rains). We had to wade because the banks are so overgrown with nettles and brambles and to be honest it wasn't always easy to get to the spots we wanted to fish. For most of the time I used a J9 Rapala which didn't quite get down as deep as I would have liked in many places. Richard has fished the stretch more than me and he used a shallow diving fat plug and/or a surface swimming mouse for the lily pads and shallows and either a Rooster Tail spinner or a soft plastic jig for the deeper stretches.

Richards tactics certainly paid off and overall he caught more than I did but I still managed a few perch and jack pike. The most amusing aspect was the way in which almost every fish managed to escape the hook or the hand before we could take its picture. It was a bit of a comedy to be honest and by the end of the session we were expecting the fish to get away. Apart from one tiny perch (the first fish of the day) most of our stripeys were half a pound upwards and the pike were round the two pound mark. On one occasion I had a brief contact with a larger fish (pike) which was dragging the rod round but it came unstuck before we got a look at it. I think we had fish on just about every lure we tried

It was a very satisfying trip and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. The next thing should be to give it a try with small livebaits and see whether we can catch some larger perch.

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

Plugged perch.