23 February 2018 (Friday) - Perch Fishing

Yesterday I mentioned that I was disappointed to see there was no frost on the cars when I got up. Today I was disappointed to see that there was. Over brekkie I watched an episode of “Plebs”; I’ve seen them all now (for the third time); I shall have to find something else to watch.
I got dressed (five layers), got my defrosted prawns, scraped the ice off of the car and drove round to collect the first fruit of my loin.

We agreed that as the temperature was minus two degrees it might be as well to wait a little while before going fishing. So we went to the Brookfield cafe even though "My Boy TM" is on some sort of diet. As I scoffed my full English breakfast he just had beans on toast. I think his diet is a new thing; he had a Big Mac Grande yesterday. We crossed the road to the co-op for sandwiches, and seeing that the temperature had gone up to only minus one degree we set off for a day’s perch fishing.
For those of my loyal readers who are not of a piscatorial bent, perch are small predatory fish which are relatively common in Britain. The average one weighs in at a few ounces but they do get bigger. The heaviest one caught in Britain weighed in at just over six pounds. Yesterday we had a recce at Sam’s Lakes. We were told there were perch in there up to five pounds in weight, so a day’s hunting perch was the plan.

I am reliably informed that perch like prawns, I used my brain here. (Have I ever mentioned that I am a genius?) My plan was to have one rod with a prawn on the lake’s bottom. With another rod I would float-fish using maggots as bait just above the prawn. I would periodically chuck in a handful of maggots to attract fish. So I would be catching fish on my float-fishing rod which were being attracted to the maggots, and the fish attracted to the maggots would in turn attract the predatory large perch. We both agreed that it was a very good plan…
In retrospect I should really have explained the plan to the fish.
After four hours effort and only one tiddler caught I abandoned my genius idea and went back to my standard way of fishing for carp with flavoured pellets. That worked reasonably well.

When we arrived at the lake at eight o’clock the mud was still frozen. By mid-day the mud had melted and we found ourselves in something of a quagmire. Despite five layers of clothing and my new fingerless fishing gloves I was shivering, and "My Boy TM" wasn’t looking that warm either. We gave up at half past two.
I took a few photos of our fun. You can see them here. We had a good day. We will most certainly go back to Sam’s lakes. But it was oh-so-cold. And I could have probably coped with the cold if we hadn’t had the mud as well. I couldn’t stand up without feeling that I was about to fall into ether deep mud, the lake, or both.
As we drove away we saw from the car’s thermometer that the temperature was a balmy three degrees.

With only a brief stop for geo-reasons we were soon home. I unpacked and took the dogs round the park. I’d warmed up on the drive home; it was freezing as we walked round the park. I was glad to get home for a warming cuppa.
As I unpacked I saw I’d not eaten the sandwich I’d bought at the co-op. Bearing in mind that the temperature outside today was colder than the inside of my fridge I popped the sandwich into the fridge. It will keep.

"er indoors TM" went off out to her mate’s birthday party (or something). Together with my dogs I slept in front of the telly

No comments:

Post a Comment