Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

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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 four 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. 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 so if you are new to fly fishing or spinning these are the ones for you).

04 November 2009.

Cracking perch.

My son Richard came to stay for a few days last week so fishing was high on the agenda. As well as a spot of sea fishing we had a couple of goes on the river for pike and Rich decided that he'd try the Sandra soft plastic lure on which I'd recently been catching bass. I stuck to my old metal spoon. To be frank our first attempt wasn't all that successful and although we had one or two bites the only fish to hook itself on Richard's lure was fairly small and it chopped the tail off the lure in the process. Obviously they're not really man enough for the task.

Our second session, lasting only an hour, was more productive although many of the bites we had were from small pike and were not hooked. I had a couple of fish lunge at the spoon and Rich probably managed to tempt five or six to his off-white plastic 'eel' (that's what it is really). However the prime catch came to almost the last cast. Richard was twitching the 16cm lure close to the bankside vegetation (in zero flow it is clearly worth giving even these lures a bit of extra movement) when his rod tip plunged down and he was in. The fish did not put up too much of a struggle on the pike tackle but it turned out to be a beautiful perch of well over a kilo in weight. What an end to his holiday.

He's in!

Richard prepares to land a modest pike on the (now tailless) Sandra lure.

Got it!

Not the biggest pike in the world but still pleasing to catch.

Damaged lure.

The pike sliced the tail completely off the lure.

Twitching.

On our second session Rich is twitching his Sandra under the near bank.

Lovely fish.

All perch are wonderful fish and this is a big one for my local river.

Close up.

Perhaps I should be using bigger lures when I fish for perch intentionally, although the hook looks a bit on the large side.