Out of interest...
Got the chance to fish a lovely estate lake where the few other anglers are mainly after the tench and few carp, and the perch are an unknown quantity, other than the bailiff saying they get up to ‘about 2 lb’. Apart from mature woodland, plenty of reed beds and extensive bloodworm beds, the main feature of the lake is extremely uniform, shallow depth never exceeding 1.3 m. My question is does anyone have any evidence/compelling experience as to whether lack of any real depth/refuges limits perch size, i.e., won’t produce 3 and 4 pounders? Otherwise, I don’t see why not, given that there’s masses of prey fish.
And, yes, one answer is to fish it and see - I’m already doing that
Estate lakes are rare animals boy. dont give up your ticket what ever happens. the one estate lake i had the pleasure of fishing, closed to repair a pipe ,it was drained (all the fish were supposed to be removed ??) when it re opened they decided to not allow fishing anymore, I would pay to go and just sit there for a few hours, the only fish I see get caught other than pike was one tench and thats it , it was a good doubles water and I dont think I ever blanked over there, the pike were getting bigger year on year and would have soon been ddoing a 20 or two if they hadn't of drained it , I was gutted, most if not all the pike came at range, never had nothing up to about 40 yards etc, enjoy your estate lake boy.
Nothing wrong with me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 Its everyone else.....Quite possibly the last gravel pit angler
Out of interest...
Got the chance to fish a lovely estate lake where the few other anglers are mainly after the tench and few carp, and the perch are an unknown quantity, other than the bailiff saying they get up to ‘about 2 lb’. Apart from mature woodland, plenty of reed beds and extensive bloodworm beds, the main feature of the lake is extremely uniform, shallow depth never exceeding 1.3 m. My question is does anyone have any evidence/compelling experience as to whether lack of any real depth/refuges limits perch size, i.e., won’t produce 3 and 4 pounders? Otherwise, I don’t see why not, given that there’s masses of prey fish.
And, yes, one answer is to fish it and see - I’m already doing that
Thanks for your help.
Most of my local lakes are shallower than that, and those containing perch have all at some point done them to over 3lbs. If there are few, or no pike and perch are the dominant predator , then even better
I remember that lake very well Del, such a great shame the owners decided they no longer wanted the riff raff fishing in their back garden - me that is not you! You probably don't recall but we met on the lake and you introduced me to the benefits of using circle hooks, sharing the rather unique rig you were using at the time!! Anthony
Del, any idea why your pike kept away from the bank? In our few exploratory sessions so far, we’re already mystified as to why not even one daft wee perch has hung itself on our lobs and maggots - just lots of roach. Wondering if v. shallow margins makes even the little ones wander mid-lake (as the larger perch do on most of the other waters I fish) rather than following Mr. Crabtree rules.
Mark, that’s really re-assuring to know, thanks. I’m temporarily less mobile so having to get my head around mainly shallow local waters rather than heading for Cumbria where November usually sees me in 15-30’ of water on even the smaller waters... Did your perch seek out the slightly deeper spots, even, say, 4’ amid 3’?
Del, any idea why your pike kept away from the bank? In our few exploratory sessions so far, we’re already mystified as to why not even one daft wee perch has hung itself on our lobs and maggots - just lots of roach. Wondering if v. shallow margins makes even the little ones wander mid-lake (as the larger perch do on most of the other waters I fish) rather than following Mr. Crabtree rules.
Mark, that’s really re-assuring to know, thanks. I’m temporarily less mobile so having to get my head around mainly shallow local waters rather than heading for Cumbria where November usually sees me in 15-30’ of water on even the smaller waters... Did your perch seek out the slightly deeper spots, even, say, 4’ amid 3’?
Thanks again.
On one local lake they drop into the slightly deeper water this time of year (3ft deep area, rest of the lake 2-2.5ft), but the others are pretty flat and featureless so any cover in the form of weedbeds and reeds attracts them. The main thing is to find the prey fish shoals though. At the moment on the lake i`m fishing, a huge shoal of fry is stacked into one sheltered corner and the perch are in there too, smashing them at their leisure. When we found the fry, we`d fished 500yds of bank without a sniff until we reached that spot, then had fish within minutes. I wouldnt be surprised if theyre in that area for the whole winter now...
Del, any idea why your pike kept away from the bank? In our few exploratory sessions so far, we’re already mystified as to why not even one daft wee perch has hung itself on our lobs and maggots - just lots of roach. Wondering if v. shallow margins makes even the little ones wander mid-lake (as the larger perch do on most of the other waters I fish) rather than following Mr. Crabtree rules.
Mark, that’s really re-assuring to know, thanks. I’m temporarily less mobile so having to get my head around mainly shallow local waters rather than heading for Cumbria where November usually sees me in 15-30’ of water on even the smaller waters... Did your perch seek out the slightly deeper spots, even, say, 4’ amid 3’?
Thanks again.
On one local lake they drop into the slightly deeper water this time of year (3ft deep area, rest of the lake 2-2.5ft), but the others are pretty flat and featureless so any cover in the form of weedbeds and reeds attracts them. The main thing is to find the prey fish shoals though. At the moment on the lake i`m fishing, a huge shoal of fry is stacked into one sheltered corner and the perch are in there too, smashing them at their leisure. When we found the fry, we`d fished 500yds of bank without a sniff until we reached that spot, then had fish within minutes. I wouldnt be surprised if theyre in that area for the whole winter now...
had a good perch the otherday , on paternoster live roach , i actually moved the rig after a while , into shallower water and had the perch within minutes of moving it
was in about 15ft at first then moved to about 5ft in the margins , which did have loads of very small silvers about 50mm in length
so me thinks the perch were after the smaller sized roach ....but small jacks then moved in inbetween the grebes , it was alive with predators that day ......
been back on the same venue today , just small pike in the margins , nothing to the big deads at range ........
but i hammered the roach again on waggler tactics to red maggot ......which was nice , but my target was a good perch tbh
Wouldn’t worry about depth - a lake by my house has been bought out by the parish council and handed over to a fishery management company to run for them (they’ve turned it into a carp syndicate) but before that I and a few others fished it for perch and pike a lot.
It had badly silted over 20yrs of being abandoned and an average depth was 2’ but I had pike to 17lb and perch to close on 3lb from there as in summer it was black with carp, roach, tench and other fry for them to feed on as well as clearing up the wasps too.
If the food is there then the perch will grow large
