Angling features and news

Russ Evans and Ian Welch tackle Milton Lake's big perch and tench, on a day of mixed weather and after a heavy downpour of rain in the early hours of wednesday morning, we were greeted with a muddy looking Milton Lake. Our chopped worms approach was going to help as the amino acids in the worms will help the perch track down our hook baits, plus of course I am armed with my main source of attractant, Predator Plus.

March 2009 was when the feature took place, please read on.

Words and pics by Ian Welch.

“You must come back in early spring for the perch, there’s a chance of a serious haul of big fish!” The words of Old Bury Hill’s tackle shop manager, Russ Evans, as I left the venue after a highly productive Zander session on the main lake last autumn, stayed in the back of my mind throughout the long, cold winter.

Russ had enjoyed some excellent early season returns from the venue last spring and reckoned fish to over 3lb could be on the cards as it started to warm up this year too.

We kept in touch regularly throughout the early part of the year –Facebook is a wonderful tool- and when the weather finally started to deliver some genuine warmth we hatched plans.
   With Russ a top flight matchman and me a big fish angler willing to learn from all disciplines I was really looking forward to it, and the contrast between our respective styles could make for a very interesting session.

Timing is everything when it comes to spring perch as the species is amongst the first to spawn. Get it wrong and nor only are weights well down but the chances of bites are much reduced until the fish enter ‘recovery mode’ and start to feast on newly hatched fry later in the spring.

Being on-site most days Russ kept a close eye on things and as the date of our outing approached it looked like we might have got it just right.
   A sharp overnight frost on the morning of our visit did not worry me too much as perch are usually active throughout the coldest part of the year and quite resilient to thermal change. On the plus side it might actually deter the venue’s tench and carp which could potentially ruin the day if they moved into our swims in numbers. It was strange to arrive at the complex and not head straight for the main lake, but our destination for the day was not the noted Old Lake but the smaller Milton Lake, designed in the early 90s to proved a match-style arena for competitive and pleasure angling.

Typical of so many prolific ‘commercial’ pools where there is a huge head of fodder fish and no pike, Milton has developed an excellent population of big perch.
  Russ was already setting up when I arrived and had positioned himself in peg 1 with a big reed-bed covering a large expanse of water to his left.

   Perch just love ambushing along reed margins and we both reckoned the area might be good for a few fish.

My plan was to have a nose around the entire venue before I decided where I was going to settle, but I only got as far as peg 3 before I stopped in my tracks and knew exactly where I was going to spend the day!

It was a corner peg and, with generous spacing, afforded me a lot of free water with no chance of being disturbed even if someone dropped into an adjacent swim.
  It also offered the largest area of reed cover on the lake and two minutes with a plummet showed me there were considerable depth options in front of me too. There was deep water under the rod top, shallower water tight to the corner. A few inches of reed-strewn water may put off lots of anglers but it’s classic perch habitat!

I spent five minutes chopping lobs with the worm scissors. I then baited two spots along the reed fringes and one right in the edge, with the chops and a sprinkling of red maggots before going to see how Russ was tackling his peg.
He was, in fact, combining the finesse of pole fishing with the versatility of a running line, and had a float rigged with a 0.5 gr Drennan Choppa pole float and a size 20 Kamasan B510 to 0.09 mm (1 lb 8oz) line.

It was the sort of set-up I had employed in the past for shy-biting crucians but I reckoned it all looked a bit too fine for the big sergeants, even with perfect balance delivered via a long soft-action float rod and Russ’ skill!

On the bait front we had similar ideas but instead of lobs Russ shredded a tub of dendrobaenas and I was taken aback by the fact he appeared to be doing it with a set of garden shears! It was only on closer inspection I realised they were, in fact, long handled worm scissors – a blinding bit of kit which really takes the pain and effort out of the job.
  A good glug of bloodworm extract and Sensas predator liquid and they were ready to go.

Russ too was feeding red maggots and alternating between maggot and worm section on the hook.

As I stood on the platform behind him I watched as his first cast brought a couple of dips of the float before it sailed away. He lifted into a fish which bolted straight for the sanctuary of the reed- and by the way the rod was arching around it looked like it might be a really serious perch!
  Perfect control kept the fish out of the danger zone, but after a couple of minutes with the fish still making the occasional strong run we both suspected it might not be a perch. Sure enough a flash of olive green gave the game away shortly afterwards- a nice tench but not really what we had hoped for!

Back in my swim I was undecided whether to fish the pole tight to the margin reeds or to target the middle of the reed-bed with light leger gear, so in the end I did both and set up two separate swims with my seatbox and pole kit on the platform, and my light barbell rods, buzzers and bobbins at the side!

Whereas Russ had used a pole float on running line I opted to use a relatively heavy Fox chubber float on my pole, for the simple reason I was going to fish one and a half lobs on the hook and needed a but of buoyancy to support it,
  On the barbell rods I set up a light link leger with both kits employing a size 8 hook to 2.6 lb fluorocarbon.

The only bait difference on the leger tackle compared to the float was the fact I decided to use a hypodermic syringe to very carefully inject a little air into the lobworm to lift it off bottom slightly. Perch are sight feeders and I find that popping the bait off deck brings bites a little quicker. I’ve also found that reed-beds generate a lot of debris and I didn’t want my lobs burying themselves out of sight.

Starting off on the leger tackle it took me about 30 minutes to get my first bite and after playing the fish oh so carefully I too found a little tinca had snaffled my bait!
  There was a bit of fizzing and movement in the area too so I decided to cut back the feed and rest the area.
   Instead I decided to flick the re-baited hook into the shallow spot right in the corner and within a minute struck into a steady take on the lightweight bobbin.

The head-shaking this time left me in no doubt whatsoever what I had hooked and there was a bit of solid weight to the fish too; and as Russ came up to see what was occurring a flash of red and black boiled on top before bolting for the reeds. It was not just a perch, it was a big one!

Thankfully it didn’t quite have the power to bury itself deep in the reeds and I kept it at bay right at the edge of the danger zone until constant pressure eased it into open water and the net.

  At 3lb 10oz Russ informed me it was one of the largest caught from the venue- that would do for starters! The disturbance destroyed any chance of further action on the shallows for a while, so I switched to the pole and picked up a second fish of around the 2lb 8oz mark some 20 minutes later.

  This set the pattern for the day with me alternating both lines and methods and picking up the occasional fish on each, although I noted the leger tactics with buoyant bait picked up the larger fish.

We called it a day in typical British weather, as the spring sunshine dissolved into a freezing hailstorm late in the afternoon!

  I’d got ten or so perch of a lovely average size; Russ had only picked up on his light tactics, but instead his net was bursting with a cracking haul of early-season tench together with some very plump roach.

Anglers Mail 7th April 2009