Earning my stripes!

Cold day, margin swim!

A few hours free time jumped up at me today, so I thought that with the cold snap well and truly here, I'd grab the perching equipment and head down my local pool for a few hours chasing stripey's! Now, there's a few special one's in our club water and i'm bloody determined to get one this winter! So, with some red maggots, lobs, dendras and prawns, I ventured down the lake around 1pm in an attempt to earn my stripes!

My good pal Gary was already fishing and with pretty much all the flyer pegs taken, it was just a case of dropping in a likely looking spot for a while. I fed a concoction of CBS fishmeal groundbait, scalded CBS 2mm Halibut pellets, Krill amino compound, shellfish flavour, prawns, sea mussels, worms and red maggots into the margins either side of my swim.

bite time!!!!

The left hand rod fishing with a float rig and lobworm set up, the right hand ledgering a 1/4oz weight free running set up, size 10 CBS Trident hook and a prawn smothered in CBS Krill Amino Compound.

The going was tough and both Gary and I struggled to get the fish going to start with.... We both eventually started to get bites. Gary on mixed bats on the pole catching some roach and skimmers. I wanted to just catch perch so I stuck it out on the prawns for the majority of the afternoon.

My first of the season at 2lb 5oz

My first fish took the ledgered prawn around 2pm and after a great scrap, I was sat admiring a stunning 2lb 5oz Perch! I had a few other very viscous takes that somehow I missed??? Things then died a death!

Gary called it a day around 3.30pm and I was left on the lake by myself. My target margin swim to the right hand side seemed to be the pro active area, so I concentrated my efforts there for the last 2 hours of fishing time.

no 2 at 1lb 9oz

I took a couple of nice skimmers and a roach on the prawns before at last another perch of 1lb 9oz took the bait.

I know there are some much bigger specimens lurking around in there so i'll be back down in the week for another go at the striped monsters!