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Hunting a 3lb Perch

The hunt for a 3lb perch - fishing

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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Photographing Your Catch – Part 2

photographing fish catch trophy shots - angling self-take photography

Please note: this article is now a little out of date. Whilst much of the information is still relevant, my techniques, knowledge and equipment has improved so I intend to completely rewrite this guide in the near future, to bring it up-to-date. I continue to host this page mainly for archival reasons. Photographing Yourself This year I have been forced to fish many sessions alone, which can be very frustrating when you catch a fish worth photographing, but with a few extra pieces of equipment you can still take good photographs of yourself and a fish.  An easy way to still get a photo of your catch is to leave the fish in the landing net, and lay something beside it, such as your reel or scales, to give an idea of perspective.  This can look really good, but there is a better way to photograph your own captures.  On my Olympus cameras, there is a function which enables you to use an infra-red remote control to work the shutter.  Gardner Tackle market a camera adaptor which screws into a bankstick, so that you don’t need to carry a tripod to mount your camera on.  I mount this adaptor into …

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Photographing Your Catch – Part 1

Tibshelf Ponds perch

Please note: this article is now quite out of date! Whilst much of the information is still relevant, my techniques, knowledge and equipment has improved – so I intend to completely rewrite this guide in the near future, to bring it up-to-date. I continue to host this page mainly for archival reasons… A large part of the joy of angling, to me, is being able to reflect on the memories of specific captures in months or years to come. A good quality photograph helps to keep those memories so much more vivid and alive. So, when you land that prize specimen – will you have the know-how to get a great photo and do the fish justice? Keeping a few basics in mind can improve your angling photographs considerably, so this is my common-sense guide to building a fishing album to be proud of. Remember though – to take a good fish photograph, you must first catch a fish! Unless you already have a lot of experience with a camera, I would not suggest the use of an SLR camera for fishing. Although I’ve taken some great shots with an SLR, I find it far more practical for fishing to …

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