A fishing day ticket to thrive

After the relative failure of not getting one of the `mythical`fives from the previous mentioned writings, I jumped at the chance to accompany a very good friend of mine to a lovely little multi species complex...our aim was to catch some of the large percys in the lake. Actually it was his turn to choose the venue, so I was glad he chose...read on and you`ll see why...

After meeting `Green giant` in the car park we decided a pin ‘n’ prawn day was in order...mind you in my case, I dug out my much loved version 6 Mitchell 300, as I planned to quiver tip prawns as well as float fish. One of the things I`m meticulous about is setting up quietly so with this achieved and both rods in position, I angled on...it wasn`t long until I had the mini Trangia fired up and a cup of coffee was steaming in the morning air.

At this point the float dipped [I nearly knocked me drink over!] and a gentle strike met with solid power and, after a short spirited battle, a lovely perch was netted.

Although it was cool I was feeding a small amount of halved prawns, Haith’s hempseed and a mixed variety of the Haith’s new SuperSoft pellets (of which I now was getting low on) on the quiver rod I sprayed the aforementioned baits plus, some corn. A couple of gentle liners on the q tip let me know something was around. Now I don't set the q tip with any tension, I was virtually slack lining the prawn with a very long hook link as I didn't want the stripys to drop the bait...


Then it happened, the q tip went around and I didn't even need to strike as the fish powered off into the middle of the pool...again the fish fought well in the deep margins, when I saw it was indeed a big perch and my heart skipped a beat. With a bit of whoop I scooped the fish into my net and I was happy.

I was actually shaking [isn`t this what it’s all about?] so I dug the camera out, whist my good mate held the fish for me to photograph...good times.

Throughout the day, I had some cracking bream, roach and three nice looking winter rudd too...all caught using `old skool `methods; proper fishing.

As the day drew to a close, three more nice perch went in my landing net...a great day with a good friend and good angler.

Written by Adam Roots