Dr Paul Garner
Try my five top baits to catch them
Tips for last-gasp perch, including a deadly feed to make
IS IT just me, or does the quality of perch fishing here in the UK seem to get better and better with every year that passes?
I can’t think of any part of the United Kingdom where you are far away from some good perch fishing these days, and not only a netful of stripeys, but a great chance of a really big fish too.
Whether you are fishing commercial complexes, canals or giant man-made and natural stillwaters, the sport can be superb if you get your tactics right.
There are five main baits that I use for my perch fishing, and my choice on the day depends upon the fishery itself, the conditions, and quite often the rules imposed.
This week I will take a look at each in turn and see how to get the best from them...
WORMS
The humble lobworm, collected from a lawn, is without doubt a most effective perch bait on all types of venue. The good news is that with all the rain we have had recently the worms will come to the surface after dark, making them quite easy to collect. There is an art to creeping up and extracting worms from their burrows. Get a firm grip and wait for the worm to relax before gently prising it free. Store worms in damp moss in a cool, shady spot. The last thing you want is for your carefully collected bait to spoil. Hook a lobworm through the saddle using a size 8 or 10 hook to give plenty of clearance on the strike. If the fishing is slow, try snipping off the short end of the worm to let more of the flavour out. I tend to keep my precious lobworms back for the hook and feed a mixture of chopped dendrobaenas and maggots. To pop up my lobworms when legering I give them a little ‘lifejacket’ by sandwiching the worm between two slices of rig foam on the hair. Now you have a bait that will stay popped-up for hours and can withstand long casts with ease.
PRAWNS
On many commercial fisheries where the rules limit your choice of bait, uncooked prawns have become the go-to bait for many perch anglers – and with good reason.
Perch love a fresh prawn, and whether ornot the lake contains crayfish they instinctively know that they are food and gobble them up.
Prawns, though, are very high in protein and will fill up perch very quickly, so they need to be used sparingly. I normally chop up one or two baits and mix them with a handful of maggots. This mixture is best fed with a pole pot or small bait dropper so it gets to the lakebed in quite a tight area. Half-a-prawn on a size 8 hook with the float set slightly overdepth is a tactic that has accounted for numbers of big perch.
A useful option that is smaller and easier to use is giant krill. I simply break off a chunk from a frozen block and defrost it on the bank.
These baits are about 4cm long, and despite their tough shell are easy to hook. All fish love them, especially perch, so don’t be surprised if you finish with a real mixed catch.
FISH
Both live and deadbaits will catch perch, but the baits have to be of the right size to be truly effective. I like baits around 4ins long.
At this size they are large enough to deter most of the smaller perch, but still manageable by a perch of 2lb or above. On many commercial fisheries I am sure that the abundant small silver fish make up a large proportion of the diet of big perch and, if the rules allow, I will use a fish bait on one rod.
Perch, like pike, will take a bait headfirst, so I tend to nose-hook my deadbaits and strike as soon as the bobbin lifts.
A size 8 hook is plenty big enough if you are hooking your baits this way. Larger hooks should be avoided, as they could damage the delicate tissues at the back of the throat.
The most effective fish has to be a gudgeon, but roach are much more abundant, and deadbaits of the correct size can be bought from most tackle shops.
LURES
I find myself spending more and more time lure fishing for perch, simply because I enjoy this style of mobile fishing so much.
Over the last few years, lure fishing for perch has exploded and there are now many different styles of fishing and thousands of different lures that you can buy specifically for perch. From having a lack of information
on lure fishing for perch we are probably now at the stage of information overload!
The main thing to consider is where you expect the perch to be. Most lure fishing tactics present the bait at a specific depth, be that hard on the bottom, just off it, or in midwater. The colder the water, the closer to the bottom I will fish, as the perch tend to hunker down when the temperature is low.
So, go for a Texas-rigged bait when it is really cold and drag it along the bottom. Swap to a drop shot fished about a foot up in spring, and switch to a jig or crankbait through the summer and autumn.
Colours are very much a matter of using what gives you confidence, but in my experience it can pay to have a mixture of dark and bright colours. Ring the changes until you find the best pattern on the day.
MAGGOTS & CASTERS
Most anglers only use maggots and casters as feed, but when the going is tough a bunch of maggots can be very effective. This tends to be the case after an explosion in natural food – normally bloodworm – when the perch are preoccupied with these tiny larvae. While bigger baits will be ignored, three red maggots on the hook and a feeder filled with the same will often score.