Out perching with The Foot

I took the previous Friday off work to hoy some lures at some Ouse Pike, with a little success with a few falling to a Manns 1- and many missed hits (Strangely!) on a Salmo Slider (Tinsel town flavour). The highlight was a decent perch, not quite 2lb on a fox creature spin in yellow, nailing it as soon as it hit the water - it made my day!
But with the gusty wind getting ever worse, off i went home for a little sleep and spend some time with my canine girls.

I itching to play out again, and with Ken, my usual fishing buddy none too well, I used it as an opportunity to tempt out Andy"Footy"Horwood, a lure fishing perch and zander fanatic, whos company I always enjoy, and I love his attitude lure fishing, who was until my call "busy doing paperwork" but it was too nice an evening not to do anything so I picked him up and off we go to one of his secret river perch hotspots for the evening!
I understood that the perch average a good size here and i was advised to use stepped up gear, so I brought along my BromanOdell Esox Lucius 5-25g spinning rod (which I love, its a great fun rod!), Shimano Sedona, 20lb fireline and a good selection of lures within this rods casting range, cranks, spinners and jigs with grubs and shads were all on the menu tonight......
After a little low down on the venue, Andy gets a little perch first cast and then we both get takes straight away, its clear that the perch are `avin`it!
we ended up walking perhaps half a mile on the stetch, with perch hitting all over the place with follows and takes right under our from good fish, some of them looking like 2lb-ers. Andy had nailed a good few fish before long and I`d had a couple about the pound on yellow grub/spinner jig combos, one of them as a was sorting out a bloody great braid birds nest! then just as I pulled free of a snag, a little jack hit my jig just as I sorting the slack out...........They know how to pick their moments!


Everything seemed to go dead for a while, so we headed up to a lock where Andy had a plan, where the ground paddles empty out the lock chambers this is where the perch are waiting to ambush so Andy says as soon as he got one, I was to cast over ond get another one (before you return them and spook the entire shoal) so he did and I then had a cast, and I got one, only mine was much bigger! A pike of coarse, not quite a double but a great fight on light gear-one of the best I can remember, making a right monkey out of me! but we did manage to get her in the net and after posing for the camera she went back nicely.

We ended the day with another couple of perch and Footy got a Jack of about 5lb, so he had a hatful of perch to over the pound and that pike, I had a few perch all around the pound, a pike about the same and that bigger pike. A great evenings fishing, thoroughly enjoyable with Andy great company as ever as well as enlightening me with his tactics and experience doing this kind of fishing......Thanks Mate!!

Dying to get out again now!