“I set the hook into a really powerful fish which stripped line and headed into the main flow. Judging by the sudden surge of energy, I thought it was a pike”
When lure fishing for perch at this time of the year Adam Melton prefers to target the deeper water in the middle the river, but by fishing a small slack during a recent session he managed to bank himself a new personal best in the shape of this stunning 4lb 7oz perch!
Adam told us “For two days leading up to the session it had rained extensively so I knew the river would be up and coloured. I got down to the bank for 9:30am and was greeted with relatively high water with poor clarity, but I’d caught in conditions like this before so, after tying on a crayfish-imitation lure to a 5g jighead, I began casting into the middle of the river.
For an hour I roved along the bank making loads of casts to areas I’d caught from before, but never managed a single bite. The flow was just too strong – I couldn’t hold bottom and my lure was being dragged all over the place. By 10:45am I’d clipped on a Z-Man TRD lure (one of my favourite patterns) but even that failed to draw a response. I contemplated calling it a day but by that point I was near a road bridge with a concrete wall leading up to it. The wall had a 3ft-wide slack area in front of it, with the main flow on the outside, which was now boiling.
The slack gave me the best possible chance of presenting my lure well, so I decided to give it a go for 15 minutes before heading home. I flicked the lure out parallel to the bank, jigged it along the bottom a couple of times then bang, it was fish on! It was only 20cm long but I considered it a good a result on a tough day. After slipping it back I made the same cast, followed with another couple of twitches before feeling a proper thud on the line.
I set the hook into a really powerful fish which stripped line and headed into the main flow. Judging by the sudden surge of energy, I thought it was a pike, but due to the murky water I couldn’t be 100% sure. You can imagine my shock when the fish surfaced at the net and I saw stripes and a fat white belly! She went in on the first time of asking and straight away I knew it beat my old PB of 3lb 6oz. After weighing and measuring her I got a few quick snaps before slipping her back. It goes to show that even when the river looks out of sorts, there are still areas where you can catch the fish of a lifetime!”