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).

Perch, pike and carp.

I had a couple of sessions in freshwater this week (it won't be too long until I stop sea fishing for the year). The first trip was with young Ben. He fancied a spot of perch fishing so we started out by trying to catch a few livebaits. it was easy to get minnows but larger baits were hard to come by and all we managed was a couple of bleak. Anyway with our bucket full of minnows (and the two bleak) we walked on downstream to a deep hole under some tree roots. Ben's paternoster was baited up with a fat minnow and lowered into about a metre and a half of wate just by the bank. Almost at once there was knock and he picked up the rod to find himself attached to a pike but after playing it for a while it came unstuck from the small (perch) hook. On went a bleak and we lowered away again. Once more the bite was instantaneous and the fish came off after a bit of a tussle. What a downer. No more bites so we moved on downstream to another 'tree root hole'. I tried plugging under the trees on the way down and caught several modest perch. Ben lowered away into the hole with the bleak and bump. bump, he was into a better perch. All in all it was quite hectic and we landed a decent bag of perch, most on the plug but a fair few on livebaits.

later the same week it was quite mild so I took a couple of handfulls of frozen (pre-softened) chum mixer and went to the lakes. I lobed a few mixers into the lilies and followed them with a double mixer on the hook. ten minutes and the bait was sucked in by a reasonable carp. After a hell of a tug of war I extracted the fish from the lily pads, took its picture and slipped it out of the net. I moved on to a reedy swim where I could see several carp basking. Out went another little group of mixers. Another ten minutes and I was playing a fully scaled common out of the reeds. Excellent! On to my third choice of swim. There were some low willow bushes on the bank and as I approached I could see a couple of swirls in the margin. I settled down and simply lowered my mixers over the edge, perhaps 10cm from the margin in some trailing grass. The fish came along and picked up a couple of free offerings and thsi was repeated several times. I was getting inmpatient but sure enough after about twenty minutes the rod tip whanged over as a carp hooked itself. This one tore along the bank under the bushes and it was a little while before I could get it into the net - a nice mirror with lots of big scales. my fourth swim produced nothing but I was well pleased with three fish off the top in about an-hour-and-a-half. that's the sort of action I enjoy.

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.

Circle hook.

Ben's best.

Plugged pike.

Carp 1.

Carp 2.

Carp 3.