The Bed of The Yore is Covered in Perch

Was back to The Ure in search of a barbel for the challenge I set myself, but somebody had shown me some pictures of half a dozen large perch he'd caught from the stretch I intended to fish. So, I took the lob worms along with  a couple of handfuls of brandlings. He did tell me he'd caught an awful lot of small perch as well so I had a cunning plan, two lobs on a size four. Big bait big fish doesn't really work with perch though. With in moments of casting out the groundbait feeder and chopped worm the tip wrapped round and in came a little perch. It seemed no matter where I cast I was soon into a small perch, most of which whacked the tip of the barbel rod round. By lunch time I'd had at least thirty. I'd lost count at this point. The perch bites slowed down in the afternoon, but still there was a steady procession of them all under half a pound.

 

 








In the mean time I'd catapulted a large quantity of pellets into the middle of the river for the barbel. With a mesh bag of pellets going in each cast as well. The only thing similar to a bite was a quick rattle on the third cast. No chub, bream of roach either, which was odd. The last bite, before I packed up, took line from the baitrunner. Anticipating some thing big I cursed as I thought I'd missed it, only to find a little tommy had managed to get it's mouth round a size four hook.

 








Looks like I may have to decided which summer I'm working to. Astronomical or meteorological summer. I have one more session before the end of the month, lets hope I can find one of The Ure's nomadic barbel then.