Myself and Neil had a day planned on the boats with Pete and Andy for awhile, the plan was to fish a river myself and Neil had not fished by boat before, things didn't go to plan for various reasons so Pete came up with another plan at the last minute. We were happy to go along with Pete's idea as it was a day on the boat and a day to meet up with Pete whom I'd not seen for some time so it would be a good day out.
It was to be my last booked day off work of the year and i didn't even benefit from a sleep in as i was up ten minutes before I usually get up for work at 4:10am I drove over to Neils and we were on our way to meet Pete and Andy. On the way we discussed our chances as through out the week temperatures had been rising then overnight dropped right down and there was a hard frost, hopefully his wouldn't put the fish off too much.
The boats were in the water and ready to go for around about 7:00am, there was already some guys fishing from the bank and they were landing a few pike on live baits which got us thinking of the day ahead. After a short while Neil was into our first fish of the day, an angry little perch that was sticking its fins and gill covers out in disgust at being caught. Its tradition now to take a photo of the first fish on the boat and despite neither of being superstitious we didn't want to risk any bad luck by breaking our trend. Neil followed this perch with a jack that was hooked in the tail which meant it fought like a twenty!
The pike were like rockets, hitting the surface straight away at 100mph after being hooked, Andy caught a few for there boat before Neil added another to ours which went like stink. At this point I was still fish less and was chopping and changing between drop shot and jigging kopytos, then finally got a fish in the shape of a 2oz perch!
No sooner was i putting my magnificent 2oz perch back than Pete was into a good fish on the drop shot, a cracking perch that went 2.6lb, Pete was very pleased with that as it was a new method he was trying out and was allready really enjoying the change. I still saw allot of fluff whizzing about all over the place though!
I then heard over my shoulder 'im in' and turned to see Neils rod bent over again, Neil then casually said "It must be a pike" followed shortly after by "No its a bloody big perch, get the net!" Only a big perch gives you that excited panicky feeling and the need to swear profusely about the net.
I didn't really get a proper look until we had it in the net in the boat but my reaction was 'Whoa' I've been fortunate enough to have a bit of experience with 3lb perch and even more fortunate to have had a 4lber, despite this being a few years ago now I instantly thought Neils fish was going to be close to that exclusive weight, and this was confirmed when the scales went round to 4lb 1oz
What a fantastic fish and i was chuffed to bits for Neil and it was about time we got to share a PB together. Congratulations Mate! A stunning fish.
It was game on now and I switched over to jigging kopytos more as this was producing more for Neil, that's the good thing about having two on a boat, you can fish different styles and see what is producing then switch over to the most productive method on the day. It was evident this was the right decision as eventually i joined the party with a fish that actually pulled back. They were in super condition and most had very vivid colours and strong contrasted bars. We were catching a few by now and they were all mostly over a 1lb which was a great average.
The next bit of action came from Neil again who was on fire today, firstly he lost a fish which he thought felt like a good pike, we didn't want to think about the prospects of it being an even bigger perch but after a few more casts he was in again in the same area and had this bulky 3lb 8oz perch. What a day Neil was having!
I took my time putting in an appearance put slowly through out the day i was going from strength to strength building up a good tally of fish with my best being a couple of 2lbers, the biggest being 2.10lb. I switched later in the day to drop shotting again and found a few shoals that produced a little flurry of fish.
As the day went on we were getting colder and colder and even putting my savagear coat on over my other jacket wasn't keeping me warm enough, i don't think i could get anymore layers on. It didn't help that for most of the day we were sat in the shade and wishing for the sun to make an appearance.
Pete and Andy had gone for a sleep midday and left us 'young uns' to it. We met up with them later on and it was evident things had really slowed down so we made the decision to pack up and go fish a big slack on a river that we had received a tip off about allot of good fish being caught. We all fancied this so that was the plan for the last hour. Before we left Neil added another fine fish to our tally.
The plan didn't really go to plan so to speak and nothing much was caught on the big slack, in fact we didn't catch allot at all between all four of us, other than 'golden balls for the day' Neil getting a small pike and perch. Pete had a nice pike on which sadly came off close in and he was disappointed to have lost that one.
On reflection the pike didn't really make an appearance at all with just 3 to our boat and i think a similar number to Pete and Andy. We couldn't help but feel the sudden drop in temperature had slowed things down but we still wasn't disappointed with how the day had gone. It was a perch day more than anything with some cracking fish caught and a New PB for Neil so we couldn't have asked for much more. Thanks again to Pete, Andy and Neil for the day out and good laughs and Congratulations to Neil for the fantastic 4lb perch.
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