News:

The Best Fishing Forum In The UK.
Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Member?

Main Menu
Please consider a donation to help with the running costs of this forum.

Perch tips

Started by cocotosh71, October 07, 2012, 05:55:17 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

cocotosh71

Hello folks, now that the trout season's almost over, my good friend and I still want to get out and about, so have decided to chase some big perch on Loch Lomond, I haven't fished for these for years and always caught them on the worm, does anyone have any tips/experiences. Much appreciated

Traditionalist

#1
The main problem with catching good perch is finding them. They tend to roam around in generation shoals where the fish are of similar size. They tend to feed at dawn and at dusk and invariably around structure. On big waters you need to know the best areas and observe very carefully in order to find a shoal. Small fish jumping clear of the water or causing surface disturbance is a classic indication. A good pair of binoculars for scanning the water helps. An echo sounder is the most useful equipment for finding the structure. Or a map of the underwater structure.

Once you have found a shoal you can usually get quite a few good fish from it. Flies will work if you can present them properly, a small perch streamer will often work very well, but there are two other methods which invariably work much better. One is  a "perch trail".  This is a setup with a small spoon or similar mounted on a trace about a foot long behind a swivel, and another trace about a foot long attached to the spoon ( no hooks on the spoon), with a sliced shank worm hook.  Mount the worm so that the tail hangs free. This setup often results in very good perch once you have found a shoal. You want stuff like this for the "spoon". Smaller lures up to one and a half inches work best, sometimes much smaller;



remove the hooks and mount swivels. The worm trace, from 12 to 18" is mounted on the lower swivel. 

The other method is a "drop-shot" rig with a soft plastic fish, plastic worm, or similar. This is usually absolutely deadly for perch. You can use a worm if you want as well. The rig is quite simple but works best with a special drop shot hook which keeps the hook standing out from the line and with the point upwards although you can use ordinary hooks as well if you rig them properly, you can also use flies ( streamers) on this rig as well. The hook is mounted like this;



the rig is simply cast over the shoal, and then retrieved as desired, slow sink and draw retrieves usually work best but of course you can experiment as desired.  The weight is attached to the line below the hook. Choose an appropriate weight for the water and conditions;



Lures of up to three inches long work best. Larger ones may be ignored or you get a lot of "grabs" with no hook-up. Also may be a problem with pike biting off larger lures.  You don't need a wire trace for perch, although you may occasionally lose one when the line is cut on the various very sharp areas around the head.  It is best to use somewhat heavier nylon for your rigs, at least 10 lb breaking strain, and check for chafing after every fish.

Both these methods are far superior to spinning or similar and if you find the fish you can have a field day;








One of my local angling clubs here in Germany has a lake which has lots of Perch in it, and they were extremely difficult to tempt. Quite a few times small aggressive Perch in the three to five inch range grabbed my fly, usually a small fish imitation of some description. The curious thing was that about every third or fourth time this happened a much larger fish rushed from nowhere at the small Perch and grabbed it greedily.

This was quite exciting, the pulls were heart stopping, but resulted in very few large Perch hooked. I tried all sorts of flies over quite a period of time, but the results were almost always the same, I either caught nothing on a particular fly, or only small Perch, which were often grabbed by their larger brethren, but unfortunately not hooked.

I read as much literature as I could find on Perch, their sight and hunting preferences, I even tied quite a few of the recommended flies, but to no avail. Quite a few of the club members thought I was mad anyway fly-fishing for Perch, this is to say the least not common here, and they all advised me to try natural bait, preferably minnows or worms. I was determined however to catch a decent Perch on the fly. I tried dozens of different patterns all with the same results, and then decided to try inventing my own. This Perch fly was the result. The techniques for dressing tube flies can be found in the article on tube flies here on this site.

It is quite simple to tie. Cut off a piece of Q -tip tubing about three quarters of an inch long. Hold the ends in front of a gas lighter flame to thicken them slightly, this prevents the thread slipping off, and makes the fly last longer, push this tube onto a needle or similar, and fix this in your vice. If you have a tube fly vice use that of course !

Starting just behind the front of the tube, whip on your thread carrying it down the tube about a quarter of an inch. Then Take a small bunch of white hair ( Arctic Fox is good ) and tie it in on what will be the bottom of the tube, then take a small bunch of Guinea fowl hackle dyed blue ( small Perch have bright blue chins ! ) and tie this in over the white hair.

Then take two bunches of hot orange hair, I use dyed kid goat for this, and tie a bunch in at each side of the tube. Now take a bunch of dyed green goat or similar hair, paint some stripes on it with a black marker pen, and tie this on the top of the tube. A thin coat of varnish or glue between each bunch of hair is a good idea, this makes the fly very secure, perch have impressive teeth !

Do not build a head with the thread, whip finish now and varnish the turns of thread. Place the result on a needle stuck in foam to dry. When it is dry, take two movable dolls eyes as sold in most department stores for handicrafts and superglue ( cyanoacrylate ) them one to each side of the tube. Let this dry, and when you have a few flies finished put a drop of five minute epoxy between the eyes to fix them firmly. When all is dry place a piece of rubber tubing over the back end of the tube, this holds the hook in place for fishing.

The fly is complete ! Be careful using this type of glue, it can stick your fingers together so strongly that you have to use a scalpel to separate them ! There are lots of bait-fish you can imitate using this technique, try a couple of your own ideas. The eyes are definitely a good trigger for fry feeding fish.

I use silvered long shank hooks for this fly, thread your leader through the tube, tie the hook to your leader, and pull the hook into the rubber tube to hold it for casting etc. See the diagram, it is much clearer than a written description. You may of course use treble hooks if you wish, but I get excellent results with the singles, and there is little or no damage to the fish, which may be released unharmed. Perch are quite good to eat as well !

Fish the fly on an intermediate or sink-tip line, in a fast jerky motion with pauses in between, vary the retrieve until you find the right speed for the day. If the Perch are there you will get them.

Very large perch are invariably solitary, but you can occasionally get a big one hanging around another shoal.  I have had them up to 7 lbs. You can often find fairly large shoals of fish of about 2 lbs in weight, but the larger the fish the smaller the shoals.

We tend to get rather larger perch here I believe this is the current German and European record. I have never bothered with any records but I have had fish this size and larger quite often over the years.

http://www.fisch-hitparade.de/angeln.php?t=59803

sinbad

Hey Col, im not too used to chasing big perch either but I'm thinking take the rib or the canoe over to clarinch off the tail end and try jigging or smallish dead baits. Don't think we can troll with a coarse ticket I'll need to get a ticket and read the rules. Less anyone knows ? Also i think i remember something about being required to use wire trace but i would nt want to leave hooks in any pike we might encounter anyway. Sb.

Traditionalist

Almost forgot,don't be afraid to use big hooks!  I generally use at least 1/0 beak hooks with a sliced shank for worms. Perch have big mouths, and they are also rather fragile in places. Small hooks can easily tear out;

http://www.sears.com/mustad-92158-1-0-27-beak-hooks/p-SPM6262525401P?prdNo=19

a big perch can fight long and hard and small hooks will often tear out.

sinbad

Some really good stuff there Mike. That's bound to boost the chances of success a fair bit. Sb

Traditionalist

I have always done pretty well with them, much better than spinning or similar although I have occasionally had a bigger perch by trailing a plug behind the boat. As I wrote, the most difficult thing is locating a shoal. The "drop shot" rig has accounted for most of my large perch, but that is doubtless also because I use it a lot, the "perch trail" also gets plenty of fish, fished "sink and draw".  Smallish silver spoons or similar with a touch of red have always done pretty well.  I have had mixed success with flies, sometimes they work really well and other times you don't get a touch. The natural worm, a good big lobworm usually gets more fish than the artificials but some work pretty well. Good if you don't have time to collect worms.  The rigs also work quite well for a few other fish, notably Zander, and they also work well in the salt, where a strip of herring tends to do the business better than a worm and is more robust anyway.

Wildfisher

When I was a lad worms accounted for most of my perch, everything from  3 inch tiddlers  to fine fish of 2 1/2 lb.

haresear

Some timely advice for me too there Mike, particulary re dropshotting, as it looks to be a good way to cover a lot of water to locate some good perch. Thanks.

Alex

Protect the edge.

Traditionalist

Quote from: haresear on October 09, 2012, 02:06:58 PM
Some timely advice for me too there Mike, particulary re dropshotting, as it looks to be a good way to cover a lot of water to locate some good perch. Thanks.

Alex

Yes, I think that is the main advantage, you can cover a lot more water.  One thing you need to do when you locate a shoal is to fish fairly fast, not fast retrieves, but keep covering the shoal as fast as you can before they move off. In clear water you can often see the shoal following the bait and they will also follow a hooked fish. Often quite amazing to see a shoal of good sized fish following the bait or a hooked fish.  This works better if you have two men in the boat, as you can keep covering the shoal. As long as you keep them following they wont move off.  If you wait too long between casts then they do tend to move off and it can be a bugger to find them again. It pays to know the water if you can, most of my really good days have been around known structure. I have one fairly large water which has three prominent under water "hills", and the perch are invariably around one of these. If you know where these structures are then you can be fairly certain of finding the fish, even if you have to try a couple of structures before you do find them.  Fishing over "open" water tends to be very hit and miss, you can spend all day at it and never find a shoal.

Malcolm

There was a perch caught from Loch Lomond a couple of years ago which almost certainly trashed the British Record. There was a picture of it on the LLAIA site but they have tidied up the old reports and it is no longer there.
There's nocht sae sober as a man blin drunk.
I maun hae goat an unco bellyfu'
To jaw like this

Go To Front Page