Perch Fishing with Kieran.

Hi guys and welcome back. This weeks post is going to be covering a couple of short Saturday afternoon sessions with my 7 year old son Kieran down at Longham water works. When ever I ask Kieran what fishing he would like to do on our next session I only ever get one of two answers, he either wants to go 'match' fishing with his 6m Browning pole and his seatbox or its dropshotting for Perch!

The last few times its been all about the Perch for him though as he has told me he wants to catch one over a lb, this is something I am more than happy to help him with and I'm also ecstatic at the fact he wants to fish with me more and more now!

He has taken two different approaches to targeting the Perch one being lure fishing, dropshotting with small shads and other small bug imitations, the other being to try live baiting for them with minnows he catches himself using maggots on a scaled down dropshot rig.

He has also been helping me test out and use some of the Realistic Shad lures reviewed in last weeks post, He has now also claimed my favorite Fin and Tide cap as it is 'his lucky Perch hat' as he likes to call it.

I prefer him to lure fish when targeting the species as I'm not over keen on live baiting my self, it was something that came about by accident one day and he has taken a liking to. He was fishing for Minnows and Bleak with me whilst I was fishing for Dace when a Perch took a minnow he was winding in. He found this totally amazing and was all he would talk about on the way home, telling me how that's just how nature works and he got to see it.

I do though however want to encourage him as much as possible to fish and feel as long as I can teach him that doing some of the things we see down there is wrong, like the other day when a guy used a 10oz Dace (roughly) as a live bait, I also know of a guy that thinks its okay to use 2lb Roach as live Pike bait. These are the types of things he WILL grow up not doing!

Back to the lures though, one of his favorite lures hes been using lately is the Crazy Fish Cruel Leach in a bright green color, he has been doing very well on it where small Perch or 'wasps' are concerned.

Something he has also been asking me about is competition fishing bless him, so I bought him a little lure bag and he sat down with me and marked out 15cm on the top, he insists next time we go he is going to beat me in a match! Again something I will also be encouraging as a little competition never hurt anyone and if it makes it more fun for him then all the better!

I have been fitting in a bit of fishing with him from time to time, in between unhooking countless fish for him that is, he is a little hook shy at the moment and doesn't really like touching anywhere near the hook which I guess at his age is something that can be a scary thing.

Another thing he has been enjoying is taking pictures for me of any fish I catch, I had my old camera from when I started fishing just sat in my room next to the computer gathering dust so I have let him have it, he spends a lot of time out in the garden now taking pictures of all sorts of things, potential photographer in the making maybe?

This year for me has been all about getting my boy to put his iPad, xbox controller and anything else along the lines down and trying to get him outside, to be honest I think its working as he loves fishing more and more every time we go, hes loving taking pictures of all the different insects and bird life we get in the garden. One thing he wants to do in the house that I do like the sound of though is he wants to start his own blog, this is definitely something he can do as we all know those bloggers are some cool people!

He did his own little write up the other day, with a little help from me, to print out and take to school, which is something I'm going to let him post on here in the near future possibly even make it next weeks.

Once again guys thanks for reading, I really sincerely hope you enjoy reading these posts as much as I enjoy writing them! For now though until next week I'm going to leave you with some extra pictures.

Realistic Shad Review.

Good evening all, so now you all know the name of the company mentioned in last weeks post we can get on with the review. At the beginning when I first decided to review the companies products I ordered a very small selection in comparison to what is on offer, now though I will be stocking lure boxes full of the rest of the range!

I can honestly say I have never been so happy that everything I had planned in my head when buying a lure worked out almost exactly as I had hoped, I bought these shapes and these colors to mimic certain fish when targeting predators. Allow me to elaborate.

Starting from the top, (of the above picture) these I bought for two different situations, firstly as you all know I have been doing a lot of LRF over the last few months, I bought this pattern and color to try to mimic some of the Sand Smelt and other prey fish to target Bass, unfortunately I haven't managed a Bass on this one yet but I'm putting that down to the fact the small checkers aren't around in big numbers yet. Secondly I felt they looked very much like small bleak and the plan was to use them for ultra light Perch fishing, however the first fish I did manage on this one was a awesome little Pike! 

 

Second pattern down and one I bought specifically for targeting Perch as I felt the color and size was a dead ringer for the thousands of minnows the Perch swallow through out the year. My boy has also been helping me put these lures through their paces and this one has become one of his favorites! Both him and me have been having a lot of success using this one on the dropshot.

 

Needless to say he has been keeping on at me to buy him a new lure box and fill it with these lures! Something I have agreed to and have also managed to talk his mum round by telling her its a great thing to encourage, this means I can sneak a few in the order for me each time as well!

Okay so moving on to the middle lure in the picture, this is one I have not been using as much as the others, I bought it in this color so as to mimic Sand Goby in a hope to tempt a few Wrasse species to take. Until Thursday evening just gone I have been unsuccessful with this one.

This was one of those moments where bites on the Isome had stopped and the sandworm wasn't working so I thought I'd slow jig for a little while, I hadn't planned on using this one to be honest but it was the first one out the packet when I reached in so thought might as well give it a go, results speak for them selves I believe!

This little guy certainly like it anyway! Was also my last fish of the session as nothing else seemed to be hungry for anything I had to offer after that.

Moving on to the fourth one down and this one unfortunately I no longer own, I didn't loose it though, I binned it as it was well and truly torn to bits, I don't think I have ever used a single lure to so much success the whole time I have been fishing! I bought this purely for LRF as it just screamed 'I'm a Goby' the minute I laid eyes on it!

I have been catching so many small Ballan Wrasse with this little lure I don't think I could count them, I have also managed some very good ones including the biggest I have ever caught!

 

Finally the bottom one, I picked this one for the same reasons I bought the first one, simply I just felt it would be nice to have a paddle tail version as well, this one is responsible for the strangest species of fish I have caught on a shad, frankly one I never thought would have been possible. After a conversation with a good friend it turns out the Tompot Blenny may have attacked this lure out of a more defensive stands rather than taking it for food, it is highly possible that I managed to drop it in near to a nest and that was the reason for the strike.

More evidence of this showed itself Thursday evening when I pulled up another Tompot that was wrapped in a piece of weed than had small orange eggs all over it.

I decided to do a review on these products in the beginning because they were something I had not seen before, I had been looking for something to review on here for a long time as it was something I wanted to start doing, however I had been struggling to find anything that took my fancy until I stumbled across these on social media one afternoon!

I was firstly taken in because in most of my fishing I like to 'match he hatch' or use something that closely imitates something my target species would see as natural to them, obviously where this is possible to apply, I have also been known to chuck out bright pink fruity pop ups on six foot zigs as well though.

All in all I could not have been happier with the results and I honestly can't see myself buying lures form other companies for a long time to come!

Once again thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed as much as I did writing!

Few Short Salt Water Sessions.

So I realize its been a long while since my last post and yes I also realize I said that the gaps in posting wasn't going to happen anymore but this time that is 100% fact and that's a promise! There is going to be a new schedule on here and I'm going to be posting weekly and with a set time each week to get these uploaded. I will now as of today be uploading a post every Saturday at 7pm.

Over the last few weeks I have been out doing a lot of salt water fishing, be it LRF, bait or lure fishing I've been doing it all and had some great results as well!

To kick things off lets talk about the fact I'm now up to 12 species of LRF caught fish, over the last few weeks I've managed Bass, Rock Goby, Tompot Blenny, Goldsinny and Ballan Wrasse! Its been a great time to be fishing the Quay and I have enjoyed every minute of it!

I have also been doing a bit of bait fishing, this however has not been so productive I've been having plenty of Shore Crabs, a couple of Velvet Swimming Crabs and even a Brown Crab not so many fish but have had a few small Wrasse in close on bait and managed a Bass the other night as well.

Lastly I have been doing some lure fishing trying out some shads and things from a new company I came across not to long ago these have been working out really well for me and next weeks post will be a review on them.

They mainly make lures for fresh water fishing but after looking into the companies products I noticed a few of them was very similar in shape to Goby and thought I would give them a go for a few Ballan Wrasse, I succeeded!

 
I managed this one on the very first time of asking and they have done nothing but get bigger since!

The main thing that has surprised me though is the consistency in which I'm catching using these lures! I had Tompot Blenny on shad lures which I didn't know was possible, however after a chat with a very knowledgeable friend it turns out the chances are I may have dropped into a nest which would have triggered a defensive attack rather than one out of predatory instinct.

The fish pictured above is my biggest Ballan to date unfortunately it happened to come on the night I had forgotten my scales and my measure, something I also believe is known as 'sod's law' but I will be back out soon and hope to better this again!

Some of the other shads in their range have been responsible for my biggest Bass capture of the year so far! (Not very big I know but I haven't started fishing for them properly yet).

Once again thank you for reading, sorry to leave you hanging on a name for the mysterious lure company but I will reveal all 7pm next Saturday when I do a full post just on my captures using them!