Monday, December 10th, 0630, I headed off to a club pool (KF-VV) with a view to fishing for perch by float fishing with maggots and worms…
My swim was in a stretch known as ‘chub alley’ – a peninsula that juts out into the main pool and which along its southern side faces an island with overhanging bushes under which a lot of chub normally reside but near the root’ of the peninsula there is a bridge that crosses over to the island (rarely used as there are no pegs on the island itself as it is only 20’-30’ from the mainland at its furthest point and thus is only used for access for ‘gardening’ purposes such as trimming of branches on the bushes when they start to go wild, etc) and I’ve found that perch like the corner formed between the island end of the bridge and the island itself and also lie under the bridge itself too…
Weather at the start of the session was quite pleasant with a warming bit of sunshine and zero breeze but about 1030 the sky clouded a little blocking out the sun and a slight cooling breeze appeared and it went a bit chilly despite the thermals, my hands in particular getting a bit numb … that lasted for about 90 minutes and then the skies cleared again and the breeze dropped so pleasant again for another hour before the clouds and breeze returned. I packed in for the day at 1400.
So, before setting up I fired a few small ‘pults of maggots into the bridge corner to start attracting my prey…
I then tackled up my 13’ ‘Hardy Matchmaker’ clone float rod with 6lb mainline and a short 6lb braid hooklength with size 16 hook … and I fitted a small wind/driftbeater type float to fish ‘lift method’…
I had a few bites in the next hour or so … and landed a few fingerling perch (based on my small hands that is, on more manly sized hands they’d probably be referred to as ‘first knuckle’ings’) and a small gudgeon … and then for the next hour not a single nibble was detected but maggots were visibly sucked on retrieval on most occasions. So at that point I switched the float to a straight waggler, shotted in shirt button style, and changed the hook to a size 12 and fished with dendro worms … upon which bites started to happen again but still mainly from fingerling perch …. and the best only two fish outside that form were two perch of around 6oz and 1lb 5oz …. and was quite pleased with the latter as I still regard any fish or whatever species over 1lb as a worthwhile fish in my book.
So that was my day…..
Next outing will be tomorrow as I write this, Thursday December 13th, when I’m heading back out piking on a pool… I’m taking my 5m pole/whip in the hope of grabbing a few livebaits before I cast out the pike rods … and pre-fishing I’m also hoping to do some contour mapping of the pool with my Deeper sonar and, as an aside, hopefully locate where the silvers are currently holing up. In the event of failing to grab livebaits I’m taking a selection of deadbaits too … and a few lures including a Colarado Spoon which I purchased last Saturday after not seeing one for years!
Temperatures are forecast to be dropping tonight down to 0’C – so I think my thermals that have been in use recently will be supplemented by my fleece onesie! Not quite time for the padded dungies yet though? Find out tomorrow!
WATER TEMPS:
Min: 6.1’C
Max: 6.5’C
stevetheangler 
Leave a Reply