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).

No seatrout (but perch, chub and pike).

When I first fished my local river, in the 1960s and 70s, you could count the number of perch that we caught on no hands. There were probably a few stripeys present because a few years later we caught one or two decent ones while spinning for mullet in the tidal reaches. However, anglers fishing for salmon or seatrout with small lures never caught perch. How things change!

This week I decided to have an hour after seatrout and, instead of the usual tiny Rapala, I decided to try one of my lumi-lures. Well, I saw one or two decent seatrout move but as an exercise in catching them it was a total failure. Instead of landing nice, silver fish I caught one perch after another. In fact I had one on my first cast and another on my last with several in between but none of them were of any great size. Just a little disappointing!

After my modest success with the perch I was encouraged to have a trip to the River Stour, just after first light, on the following morning. Perversely, despite the effectiveness of my shining, green spinner, I started off by using a 9cm jointed, floating, Rapala. In truth, since it was my first trip to the place for several months, I was reluctant to risk losing my spinner on an unknown snag. As it turned out the perch didn't seem to mind, and again I was into small perch from the first chuck. After catching a couple I hooked what felt like a bigger fish (possibly a small pike but it fought like a perch) which came unstuck after a few seconds. I pressed on downstream and although the river was very low and clear I caught perch in most of the pools and had a follow from a chub of less than 1kg. It didn't take.

After a couple more perch I decided to make my way back upstream and changed the lure for a very shallow diving floating plug given to me by a pal years ago. Guess what? yes I caught another perch and then, surprise, surprise, I hooked something a bit heavier which turned out to be a small chub neatly hooked on the mid-body treble. To finish off, when I got to to the place where I'd started I had a good take and this time landed a pike of perhaps 2kg. I enjoyed my early morning session and it was good to catch a variety of fish, even if they were all small. Must go again soon.

My first 'evening perch' on the luminous lure.

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... the last one of the session - as it was getting dark.

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Next morning, different river, another perch - this time on a Rapala.

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Change of lure and a small chub.

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...and to finish off, a jack pike.

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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