Although perch are caught on a variety of baits including maggots and casters, I want to look at tactics specifically aimed at catching big perch. Remember perch are carnivores and great predators which really determines the baits used. Lob worms and small fish tend to be the most popular baits for big perch. The choice…

August 9th saw me back at the Island lake for my usual dawn to dusk session. I set up in the south west corner, as a north easterly wind had been forecast. I was now fishing the particle on both rods, though I was still keeping up the baiting with the HNV, putting some in…

The counties surrounding Woburn Abbey had become a bit of a catfish stronghold and Herts., Beds. and Bucks. were known collectively as ‘catfish country’. Most other areas of the UK were devoid of the species. The British record at this time was held by a fish of forty three and a half pounds which had…

Normally I would at this point let him off the lead to run free, but not this morning. Today he stays tethered to me – because today there are people all around the lake. Fishing. Today is the opening day of the season and the carp, the anglers hope, are gagging for it.I pass a…

After the enforced break we can all get back on the rivers and canals again and hopefully have some good sport. I know some people still take a three month break after March 14th but I reckon it’s time to completely review the close season across the board. The three month closedown is nonsense in…

I’d learned a lot over the past few years, though some of it had taken an awfully long time to reach me, hidden away at the furthest end of a barely discernible grapevine. I had never really intended to become embroiled in carp fishing, and had even been known to remark that indeed life was…

I was staggered, but highly excited by the fact that I would be fishing all through the following day. I arrived at dawn, as usual. A gale force south-westerly still blew from the previous day, and there were bits of trees floating all over the lake. We had found that though the fish would often…

My first month has been difficult to say the least with most venues I’ve been to suffering from “feast or famine syndrome”. On paper many of the match results look good but what the overall results don’t show is that a lot of competitors are struggling to catch. When a new season starts I think…

The fenced, rhododendron-girt, and lily paved two acres, were to be tantalizingly viewed by ordinary anglers as mere glimpses through the foliage. For them, such high flown pleasures were to be had only vicariously, as the true elite unlocked the gates to gain entry, and studiedly locked them again to keep out the great unwashed….

Small fish were showing, but the hot weather nailed me to the bedchair, and I let them be. It was getting to be hard work, this getting up at 3.30am to be fishing before dawn. I decided to fish through the night on the following week-end and arrived at 5pm on the Friday evening suitably…