Photographer and angler Steven Neely doesn’t shy away from the rain and the cold.  Wrapped up well he headed out last Saturday and was well rewarded for his efforts.  He reports:

I have been promising myself to specifically target Perch on the lure gear and on Saturday I finally took the plunge. We geared up with small metal spoons, jigs, plugs and soft plastics – all the usual suspects really plus a few secret weapons of course!

As always the weather was far from ideal. 7 degrees and torrential rain made it, lets say a little cold and wet!

Normally this would dampen the spirits but it was apparent that after the first few casts the place was stuffed full of Perch! The first cast produced a fish – not big but a fish. Was this a sign of things to come or was it simply one of those days were you catch a fish at start and never get a touch the rest of the day?

Thankfully our luck was in and the place was just crammed full of fish!

We started off using Illex Pintails on small jig heads which seemed to work rather well. We then switched over to some small sinking plugs made by IMA and DUO such as the Sukari and Spearhead Ryuki. These accounted for a few fish but they seemed to be more tuned into the soft lures.

As always the Fiiish 70 mm Black Minnow was deadly effective and it wasn’t long before we had well over 50 Perch between us.

I decided to change tactics and rig up a 3inch Senko rigged Texas style with a 3g cone lead. I picked my target area which was a submerged tree stump – cast the lure in and let it contact the bottom. A quick twitch and jiggle of the lure resulted in a sharp thump and then – bang. Fish on! It was a great feeling to be actively hunting out the bigger fish around the heavy structure.

Hopefully this is just the start of our fresh water adventures – now the weather is starting to turn and our chances on the open coast are diminishing rapidly it will be Pike and Perch in the coming months.

We had nearly 100 fish between the two of us – what a day despite the rain and cold.

Tight lines