Big Perch Quest - The Freaky Menagerie of 'The Lawns'

Catching Personal best fish always seems to lead to a temporary downturn in fortune unless that is you hit one of those streaks of luck that leads to two or three in a row, like mine with zander and barbel in February last and then a catastrophic downturn like the start of my perch problems at Weston Lawns in March. I've been back twice to the Lawns in the weeks following my jammy big perch at Blenheim but had just a couple of pounders for my efforts. The first time was with Keith and the second alone. Both times we had to negotiate the attentions of the menagerie of assorted pet animals that seem to come and go here - one weeks its peafowl, then great danes and terriers, these times it was cats after prawns, a bait that seems to attract them on the bank just as well as it attracts perch under the water.

The most extraordinary thing about that trip with Keith wasn't with the massive size of the fish we didn't catch but the massive pendulous guts on the little perch I caught, fish so bloated in the belly with crammed in foodstuffs that they seemed about to burst like so many helium balloons entering the stratosphere. This one was the fattest - it looks like the shape of belly you'd want hanging off the frame of a five pounder in springtime, in which case you'd certainly have the record in the bag at six and a half! Astonishing ~

I also caught my first ever sturgeon  ~

For a little fish it put up one hell of a struggle. I wonder what a big one does to a float rod? Floating crust was tried in the evening and I very nearly had a carp or two when large boils appeared where the bait was but I fear I was striking at thin air as I couldn't see the bait, only the movements of the controller. I'll try again soon as I'd like to catch a big carp before summer is out ...
And then it was time to leave 'The Lawns' and its menagerie of pot-bellied and prehistoric fish, strutting fowl, freaky prawn obsessed cats and errant dogs behind to annoy those who were best placed to handle them by closing the door...