A weekend of cold, early morning perch and pike fishing

With a nice pile of clothes ready for washing, it was time for the customary trip home to Cheshire for the weekend to visit my mum. As it happens, my younger brother Sam, also a keen angler, was also back home for a few days and I'd managed to convince him to get up early and join me in the hunt for some stripeys. Before I left for home on the Saturday afternoon though, I first arranged to fish locally with mate Terry for some Pike. We met bright and early and shortly after wetting a line, we were soon rewarded with a fish a piece for our efforts. Terry's fish being taken on the humble silver toby, whilst mine took a fancy to the Ecogear para-max. The only other action we had was when a large pike ripped my lure in two right in front of me, somehow avoiding the hook. It was a good fish, easily over 10lb and I was a bit gutted to say the least, but that'll spur me on to return and get my revenge next time!

After driving home on the Saturday, the Sunday morning came round very quickly. I'd told Sam to set his alarm for 7am in the hope of catching first light at our chosen venue. As we got there, we realised we'd probably left it half an hour to late, but to our great surprise we both had takes almost instantly. Mine turned out to be this micro-perch whilst Sam's fish revealed itself to be a small jack pike. Then it seemed to go dead, neither of us could buy a take, so we walked half a mile or so to another likely looking spot shaded by some overhanging tress. I was soon into a fish, this time a much better Perch, but as it surfaced it gave a few angry head-shakes sending the lure flying from it's mouth, once again leaving me to watch it swim off from under my nose. Soon after the sun made an appearance, killing the fishing completely, this time we called it a day and headed home. Despite the lack of fish, Sam had really enjoyed himself and was keen along with me to have one last go at it on the Monday morning before we'd both go back to our Uni digs.

Learning from our mistakes, alarms were set for 6.30am this time round and we arrived at our venue just as things were starting to become visible. We started at the spot where we'd had some success the previous day and it was soon apparent that the fish were feeding much more actively, myself getting a dropped take and Sam getting two hits in quick succession resulting in a Perch of around 1lb. We soon decided on a move though and found ourselves back at the spot I'd lost my Perch the previous day. Sam again decided to show me how it was done, this time landing a jack pike of around 4lb on his ondex spinner. The cold was beginning to get to us a bit and it had now started snowing again, so we decided we'd start walking back to the car, having a few chucks here and there en-route.

This would prove to be a brilliant decision as at our first stop, a cast down the side of a barge with an Ecogear VX-35 vibe-bait resulted in my best perch on a lure for a good few years. At 1lb 11oz it's a lovely fish, but even better, I had avoided the dreaded blank, get in! More than content now with our catches, we continued to walk back to the car, lure chucking as we went. Having no more luck on the VX-35, I switched lure to a tidy little mepps spinner I had in my box and second cast with it found myself into another spirited Perch. Not as big as my other fish, but in my opinion a much nicer looking fish, with nice clear and unfaded markings. This one went 1lb 3oz on the scales and would turn out to be the last fish of the day. With hands now feeling frost-bitten, it took me a

good 20 minutes and a McDonalds breakfast to regain warmth but it was more than worth it. So, on the whole, it was a brilliant few days fishing and to be honest, I can't wait until my next home visit so I can have another bash at the Perch and Pike.

Until then though, thanks for reading,
Tight Lines,
Ross