“Sometimes even greedy fish need finesse”
I’M NOT sure I’ve ever been gladder to bid farewell to winter than this year. Whether it’s been yo-yo conditions, or school strikes and mystery bugs disrupting plans, I’ve struggled like never before to put a few better fish in the net.
One species that still fires me up like a big kid is the perch, but even this supposedly obliging customer has been iffy.
Swims I’d once fill in with chopped worm and catch on simple tactics have been rock hard. Pressure of the human as well as the barometric type can be an issue, but what seemed obvious was the need for mobility and a cuter approach. Sometimes even greedy fish need finesse and persistence.
Having missed the end of the river season, I’d been hitting stillwaters and canals, using an approach that owes as much to match fishing as speci angling, and that’s to use molehill soil to draw fish into my swim.
I’m on to this stuff like a shot these days, whether it’s on a country walk or at the actual fishery. The best soil is fine and almost black, and whatever these moles get up to, it’s the perfect medium for chopped worm. You also sense that even lethargic fish can’t help but nose about and investigate it – and if the only solid morsel that they find is a single lobworm, there’s every chance of a take.
Well, I say ‘every chance’, but my last two trips have involved a lot of hide and seek with very little payback. Whether the fish are already starting to gather to spawn, or simply not thrilled by rain one night and near frost the next, they’re so often not where you expect them to be.
Last time out, I must have fished seven or eight locations that screamed perch, for the sum total of one or two dithering little bites!
What on earth was wrong? It wasn’t exactly cold, but after recent downpours the water was about as clear as Matt Hancock’s conscience.
I was resigned to another blank as the light got dimpsy, when it occurred to me that I hadn’t tried the shallower swims a bit further on. But would the fish really want to hang about in two-foot-nothing of messy water sporting the merest excuse of a feature in some overhanging brambles?
You can guess the rest. Ten minutes after popping in a little molehill soil and chopped worm, the float suddenly popped, then sailed away. The way the fish steamed off, I’d have put money on it being a carp – and in fact I only got excited when an absolute hog of a perch rolled at the surface.
The fish probably had the same thought as me: “What the heck are you doing at this end of the lake?” Never mind, my impatience and a bit of molehill soil had done the job. I didn’t have another touch, but still drove home with the grin of an angler whose luck had turned.