Small Stream Adventures: New Discoveries

This morning I took the opportunity to revisit the stretch of the stream, where, at the same time last year, I had originally discovered a population of good sized roach and perch. It looked exactly as it did then, but blimey, how it's changed since winter when it was a thick black streak running through a bleak white landscape. Now it's a riot of vegetation so dense that for most of the bankside it's hard to get anywhere near.


The best little ditch round these parts...

I returned to the same places and the same fish were in residence, in fact I even saw one of the fish I caught in the snow, a roach of exactly a pound weight with two distinct and recognisable wounds on its upper flanks. Interestingly, the perch and roach were separate from each other this time around - last summer they had formed a single shoal of equal numbers.


Bad hair day, rough looking shades? I'm just another bush, to the fish...!

On the way home I dropped into a deep pool on a bend that I'd fished just the once in the winter because it looked as if it really should have had a population of roach, but at that time it failed me. I had not a single bite. This time I saw fish, and lots of them.

First I saw some sprats of one sort or another, and then, what were clearly small roach, then a smattering of perchlets, and all of a sudden, a contingent of big roach and big perch appeared in unison, stage left. I estimated then that all the largest perch ran at about a pound plus and up to perhaps a pound and a half, because I knew exactly how big the accompanying roach were having both eyes, and hands on, experience of them, downstream a way.

Here's a heavily Photoshop zapped picture of the pool, with, if you look closely, a number of perch. The roach are there too and in the same size range, but they're invisible ~


Spot the stripies...!

I reckon I can get my challenge point for perch in style with these fish! I'll need five, six or even seven of them to clinch it. I did the same with the roach in winter so I surely can do it with the perch in summer and autumn...

It's either that or grind one out on the cut, for perch are hollow fish, that always look much larger than they tip the scales at.