Des Taylor’s weekly diary
I fish for perch said to weigh ‘from 1lb to 2lb’ – but my best one only makes 12oz...
THE first heavy rain for ages hit us hard last week and the Severn rose very quickly. Then another spell of rain made it unfishable.
I’m not complaining – the river needed the extra water, and as soon as it goes down again it will fish its head off.
I cannot ignore recent press comments about otters, and supposedly how little damage they are doing to our rivers. These comments came from the very top of our sport, and I was appalled.
These people do not take a blind bit of notice of me, a professional angler who probably spends more time out on the bank in all conditions than all of them put together. All those I take out on guide days tell me how their waters have been badly affected by otters and still these people of power, working at the very top of angling, do not listen to me.
I have found so many dead fish on the bank with otter-kill marks, I have seen otters hauling specimen fish up the banks and I have witnessed the demise of my favourite waters on the Severn at Bewdley by these creatures.
In my opinion the first job of the new man in charge of the Angling Trust is to find some consultants who actually know what is happening out here on the bank.
Rant over, here’s how my fishing week went…
MONDAY
Off to a commercial that a local angler told me has had a perch ‘explosion’ of fish between 1lb and 2lb, so I didn’t need much persuading to get down there with my jigs and drop shotting gear.
I started off ‘walking the worm’, a method that has brought me so many good perch in the past, and right from the start I caught small fish to 8oz. I changed over to a small shad on a jig head and the bites slowed down, as I expected. When I did hook a perch it was still small.
I must have caught about 10 when finally I had a better fish that might have weighed 12oz! I spent another four hours catching these small perch, and in the end I tried a much bigger shad, but that produced no bites at all! I caught most of the perch on the small pink number in the photograph.
I have a feeling the perch are not as big as my informant thinks, quite a common scenario in chasing big fish but I will try again.
I have walked away from waters too early before and regretted it.
TUESDAY/WEDNESDAY
Guiding on a rising river. It fished well, with a number of good barbel and chub for my customers. Conditions were terrible, but because the water coming in was warm there was always a chance of fish feeding well. Sure enough, a couple took the bait as soon as it hit bottom.
FRIDAY
My local rivers were badly flooded now with up to 18ft of extra water in places. I know some barbel anglers like to catch them under any conditions but at times I don’t think it does them any good at all. So I headed down to my local carp syndicate.
I took my floater gear but there was a cool wind blowing over the water that put the fish down so I fished Scopex Squid boilies and caught four carp to 19lb 6oz - a mirror with bad mouth damage.
Sometimes I wonder what damage some of these fancy rigs with big hooks do to fish.
To my mind, fish of all sizes should be played with respect because today’s small one could be tomorrow’s monster!