Tackle, Tactics and Experience

Occasional Perch

The most reliable lure must be the bar spinner, in small and medium sizes. A Mepps Aglia or Comet in sizes 1 to 4, with 2 or 3 as definite favourites has caught more perch for me than any other lure. Other similarly sized spinners from Ilba, Worden, Blue Fox, Landa and of course home-made specials have all caught perch, they can't read the makers' names on the blades! I tended to use silver blades usually but also caught on gold, black, flo-orange and brass, I never noticed any correlation between blade colour and conditions.

A special trick that I discovered late, so did not exploit properly (before I moved into the more specialised realm of jerkbaits for pike), was attaching a short trailer grub to the hook, this did make a big difference and certainly attracted more perch. Watching perch chase after minnows, nipping at their tails, it is tempting to think that the soft rubber tail of a trailer grub reassures the perch that its target is edible, or maybe the extra size appeals to the perch's greed. One colour combination that sticks in my memory is a flo orange blade with a white trailer. The overall length of this combination, a size 3 spinner and tail was about three inches.

Retrieves tended to be a steady crank with pauses, the shallow water that I usually fished meant that retrieves were quite fast and pauses short.

One plug I remember as a good perch catcher was the Rebel "Wee Frog", it sinks slowly with a wire leader. One problem I had with this lure was the tendency of pike to try to swallow it, usually resulting in complicated unhooking through the gill slits. I stopped using it because of this nuisance, but if there are not too many pike about it is one to consider. Other successful plugs were the Storm "Wee Wart" and the Rebel "Tiny 'R'" these will catch lots of small pike and chub as well.

I have caught a couple of perch on spinnerbaits, one on a "Barrie's Buzzer" and another on a home made job. This perch, weighing less than a half pound, wanted a spinnerbait with two size 6 colorado blades, a big skirt and a 4" trailer grub, despite having a full stomach because it regurgitated a gudgeon as I unhooked it! I was using a flavoured trailer grub, and maybe that helped. Because perch generally take a lure from behind they will be aware of any scent trail emanating from the lure. If you ever do any general fishing you will find that perch are one of the first species to respond to flavoured maggots, whether this offers an avenue for further exploration I can't say, but it could do.

Just once I caught a perch on a jig, purely as an experiment. I was walking back towards the car park after a dawn session on an Avon weirpool, the sun was already high and I saw several small perch chasing fry on the surface as I walked along the towpath. I remembered I had some very small (1/8oz)jigs and 1" shads in the depths of my bag. I clipped one on without removing the wire leader, crept down into one of the swims where I'd seen a perch, simply dangled the jig into the water and swung the rod tip back and forth with the jig about 18" below the surface, it took all of five seconds before the little perch hit the jig, which was about what I expected. When perch are visibly chasing fry they are usually very easy to catch, but generally I would cast a spinner unless they were close enough to reach with a small jig.

One other interesting observation on the Avon is perch that follow and hit the swivel, perhaps fly tackle and sinking flies would get a few.

Perch do have a tendency to swallow baits, resulting in deep-hooking and poor survival. Do not persist with using tiny lures that they are engulfing, try a larger lure or single hooks.

I never had a perch bigger than about 12oz from the Severn, Avon or Teme but I have fluked one of 2lb5oz from a gravel pit on a Rapala Supershad, and one a little smaller on the same lure from another pit. We have seen lots of perch, including some good ones, following all sorts of big lures on various gravel pits but my brief attempts to catch them deliberately have failed.

Finding good waters is the key to all successful fishing, perch are subject to extreme population fluctuations, they are prone to catastrophic wipe-outs due to disease but survivors breed and the offspring grow quickly. If you find a decent water I would recommend that you take advantage quickly because next year they may not be there.

Note: March 2006 Since writing the above I have become rather more consistent at catching perch to order, I'll get an article together in the future.