It seems my search for big fish means travelling further afield but before doing so make sure that you do your homework carefully, which includes calling the fishery.

This week’s weather has been all over the place. One morning we awake to a hard frost, then the next flooded roads. The rivers are up once again, meaning that my search for a monster perch on the Thames seems destined for failure. The rivers although coloured may produce the odd barbel but for chub they are terrible, leaving my chub campaign on the Stour also looking all doom and gloom.

With the rivers out this week l had to look at stillwaters and one that was recommended to me was White Springs in Swansea. A long drive but over the years it has been consistently throwing up some great catches of perch, including the odd four so our destination was set for Friday. My brother had Thursday off and a social on the banks of the river Loddon saw us both trying for a bite in far from ideal conditions. The river was up, fast, but at least fining down after the recent downpour. I held very little hope, especially with bread but after roving the river for an hour l did manage two bites, unfortunately both were missed.

The long awaited visit to Wales came round. The alarm clock rang at 4am and with my father we excitedly made the long journey east. Leading up to the visit l had read articles from a few anglers and relished in the thought that we may catch as many as those that had preceded us, however this seems to be another venue that has seen its day. The owner was extremely welcoming and after a great traditional fry up, lots of coffee he showed us to the Old Canal Lake, home of my desired date. No hurry to get set up as this lake is supposed to hold loads of big perch but the owner seemed not so ambitious, saying that it hadn’t been fishing well as previous years. During the day we tried everything and every area but as hard as we try no perch fell to our tactics. As eight cormorants circled and the lake set at the rear of the complex l put two-and-two together and remembering the owners words of netting big perch from the specimen lake the penny dropped. Did the perch that featured in so many anglers catches gat hammered soon after they were released into this lake after being transferred from the bigger specimen lake. Having so many fish in such a small environment must have created lots of competition and in the early days the fight to survive may have made them easy to catch. Over the last few seasons the lake has balanced out with only a few surviving. The cormorants are definitely having an effect on this complex and with perch being easy prey many would have been taken over the winter.
Maybe we just fished the lake on a bad day as the long drive down was hampered with flooded roads after heavy rain and as we neared the complex water was rushing of the nearby hills, however even on an ‘off day’ fishing till we couldn’t see our floats with small live-baits should have produced something to strike at. Something told me that this perch runs-water isn’t what it used to be. Yes without a doubt it holds some monster perch but after the 380 mile round trip l was hoping to supply my father with lots of action. Unfortunately it didn’t happen and we left somewhat disappointed. The search goes on!

More rain is forecasted along with freezing nights making both running and stillwaters extremely tricky. The next couple of weeks are going to be really frustrating but even in these difficult conditions the odd fish will feed, l just need to be in the right place at the right time.