Attack of the Cut Price Prawns

I'd decided to have a go for the perch in the gravel pit especially as the supermarket had some prawns marked down. My only concern was  that I'd end up eating them all rather than use them as bait. The other bait was to be worms and they were breeding like wild fire in the wormery so I had plenty of brandlings for chopping up and a fair few lob worms as bait. The only problem I could see was that it was going to be a bright sunny day, so an early start was called for.

As I was first one there I had the choice of swims, and probably picked the wrong one. Tactics were simple. I'd float fish worms or smallish bits of prawn over ground bait and chopped worm. The other rod would be a feeder rod with chopped prawn and ground bait and one of the larger prawns on the hook. The float rod was fished between an overhanging tree and some tree roots. The feeder rod was out in the middle at the bottom of the bar.

The first hour produced nothing. It wasn't until the sun got up that I got the first bites. Initially I missed most of them. I changed from fishing the worm just off the bottom to fishing six inches over depth. Then a steady flow of hand size skimmers came in. I was still missing two out of three bites but little skimmers and lob worms is not the best mix. The prawn on the feeder rod was doing nothing so I tried worm for an hour to no avail, so back to the prawn.

Things went quiet for while on the float then the float bobbed along the surface. I struck into something heavy. Turning it away from the snag in front of me I thought I'd lost it until I saw the float whizzing towards me.  By the time I'd caught up with the fish it had swung right and a great cloud of bubbles came up from the bottom. It had clearly got into a snag. A bit of heave-ho and I could see the end of a branch rising in the water. Every thing then went slack. The hook length had parted about halfway along it's length. Not a clean break so I assume it had been abraded by the branch. I have no idea what I'd hooked, but I suspect a pike. Hook length replaced the next bite came on the drop and a dinky little jack was soon in the net.

After another quiet period I started taking small perch on the float. Not the bigguns I'd hoped for but at least it was the target species. After I'd had a few I change to the smaller prawns. Strangely I couldn't get a bite in them. Worm would produce, even a bunch of brandlings but not prawn. The sheer greed of little perch never ceases to amaze me. The lob worms were as long as some of the smaller ones.

 

I have no idea how many perch I caught by mid-afternoon when everything went quiet again. I'd alternated between large prawns, small prawns, bits of prawns and worms on the feeder rod but couldn't by a bite. I'd at least have expected a few few bleeps on the alarm from a nosy fish, but nothing. While other seem to catch on the feeder here I don't seem to be able to get anything much. I was also surprised to be on my own all day. A rethink may be needed for the big perch. Maybe they can't be targeted and you just have to fish for anything and hope one turns up.