Tag Archives: specimen perch

Just a quick one, but I’ve literally just found out that a specialist angler has caught Britain’s first authenticated 6lb+ perch and set a new British record weight of 6lb 2oz. I don’t know the guy, and I’ve never fished the venue, but this is a landmark fish and from how the article reads, the captor applied real specialist tactics to land this fish, so kudos.  Well done that man. The full Angling Times article is here: [Link no longer exists]

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After a few Summers of catching a decent number of 2lb+ perch on lures I decided it was time for a slightly different kind of challenge. I would still visit my favourite Summer swims which took many blank sessions to find, but now I know where the perch are at this time of year they’ve been very reliable and with only a few repeat captures. The main difference is that instead of conventional lure fishing (which I’m fairly proficient at), I would try for them with a discipline which I’m far more clumsy and out of practice with; fly fishing. I asked my good friend and fly fishing instructor, Kevin Miles, to tie me up some flies replicating perch fry, after seeing a good perch spit one out in my landing net a few weeks ago. The resulting flies – tied onto size 2 Nash Fang hooks – were really good too! I should have really taken some photos of them before I started destroying them by hurling them into undergrowth and such like! I was using my Fox Predator XS fly rod, which I bought when it was on offer a couple of years ago and it’s been gathering dust since, …

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As day was breaking I arrived at the Reading & District AA car park and was sorting through my worms as Will pulled up. Will Barnard not only has a string of massive perch to his name, he is also the angling development officer for Reading, a bailiff and coach for RDAA and is a founding member of a small specimen group based around Reading called SAS Angling! Over the past year, you may have also seen him feature in one or two of Ian Welch’s articles in Anglers Mail too…  Right from the off I got on really well with Will, who’s a genuine, amiable chap, not to mention knowledgeable! My first glimpses of the Kennet gave me instant optimism and I couldn’t wait to get set-up.  It was slightly couloured and with plenty of perchy features.   We set up in a shady area of overhanging near-bank trees, which provided the margins with some shade as the sun rose behind us. The roots were quite terrifying to offer a bait towards, but they were blatant perch (and chub!) holding features.  Before long, Will was getting bites which he was suspicious of.  Eventually after an aggressive tap on the rod tip, …

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Spurred on by my recent capture of 3 x perch over 2lbs, and confident there were more fish to be caught, I returned to the same area for a few evening sessions lure fishing. Being so late in the year I could only arrive on the bank with about an hour of daylight remaining, so I had to make the most of what little time I had. I armed myself with a selection of my most successful perch lures of the past few years, along with a couple of wildcards, just in case. When lure fishing, you’re bound to have your favourite lures, but there are always going to be days when your favourites don’t work. So it’s always worth carrying a few patterns which have never caught you a fish before. All lures have their day, and you never know for sure when that’s going to be! One lure I was glad I had taken along was a Storm Naturistic Perch, which is a soft-bodied swim bait. This style of lure has a soft rubber outer body, with a heavy internal weight. They sink quite quickly and all the action comes from the tail, which is shaped to move …

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Big perch can be truly enigmatic characters. At times almost impossible to track down; at other times they giving themselves away with gleeful aplomb. Ignoring baits is an infuriatingly perfected big perch pastime. But get the timing right they’ll take anything you throw at them!

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Until around four years ago, my only real experience of perch was catching the occasional small fish on maggots or worms as a youngster. I’d never specifically targeted the species and a fish of over 2lb was something I could only dream about. Then one day’s pike fishing on a small drain changed all of this. I was wobbling a mackerel deadbait for pike, without success, when I noticed a group of perch following the bait in. I immediately grabbed my lure rod and caught a phenomenal number of perch from the swim, including a fish of 2lb 7oz. It was one of the most spectacular creatures I’d ever set eyes on, and it set me wondering what a 3lb perch must look like. Since then, perch have become one of my favourite species to target and I’ve had my eyes set on landing a perch over 3lbs; on bait, or preferably on a lure. My previous PB perch of 2lb 7oz I’m now quite experienced at catching perch on lures, and it’s surprising just what a range of lure styles they will take. I target perch on all sorts of venues, and lure style generally depends on whether I’m …

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Hunting a 3lb Perch After a summer of mainly small-river barbel fishing and evening lure fishing stints, I can look back with satisfaction that I’ve had an above-average season and I’ve achieved a few new goals – not least of which my lure caught 15lb pike.  Throughout the Autumn and Winter, I shall be targeting mainly pike, along with other predators such as chub and perch.  So far the going has been good.  I’ve been fishing with my long-time fishing buddy, Matt, and between us we’ve already had 6 pike of between 14lb and 19lb this season.  Besides the pike, there have been numerous respectable perch captured. We were not only both seeking our first 3lb-plus perch, but also our first fish over 2lb this season.  This is how we got on… The first perch session of the Autumn began in late September, with Matt and I selecting swims with different features. Mine was a shallow, still bay, with a couple of deeper holes and some overhanging trees on the far bank.  Matt’s swim was a high-bank with shallows below, which gradually deepened off towards the far end of the swim. It became apparent that perch were present in both …

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