A change of scenery

I’d been lining Thursday up for a fishing trip all week but I was facing a dilemma with where to go and what to target. The Warwickshire Avon came up overnight and has continued to rise sharply throughout the day. Normally, this would have me thinking of Barbel however I’m not convinced that any water entering rivers at the moment is going to cause an increase in temperature, probably the contrary given the chilly nature of the weather recently. The water temperatures are around 8°C at the moment and I just cannot see any rain being warmer than that, I hope I'm wrong and can get a Barbel or two in the net. Therefore, I decided to visit a local pool reputed for decent Perch and in doing so making my first Stillwater trip since May.

The plan was simple, one rod set up with a waggler and another with a low resistance, free running lead, baited with worm. The logic was that the waggler/maggot setup would give me some sport while attracting some silver fish that in turn would bring the larger Perch to the area and hopefully to my worm bait. How could it fail? Well it did in so much as I didn’t manage the specimen Perch I was hoping for. As you would expect, the waggler approach kept me busy with Roach, Perch and a Silver Bream showing up. None of the fish were huge although some of the Roach were nice fish, especially the ones caught towards dusk. I did have one run on the worm rod but my strike met with thin air suggesting it was either a small fish playing games or a Perch that dropped the bait, perhaps my rig wasn’t as low resistance as I thought. If anyone has any ‘big Perch’ tips then please feel free to share them.

I must say that it was pretty chilly this afternoon once the cloud cleared and I could barely feel my hands. Hopefully, I will be able to manage one more trip before I return to work on Monday so I’ll be keeping an eye on what the rivers are doing although the extra coloured water may have ruined the chances of a Pike trip. All the best.