Nice 11.5 inch perch to end the day

I was fishing again at the end of the day, starting about 4pm and finishing when it became too dark to do anything more. I decided to try on the dyke nearer to the entrance to the main river (Bure) to see if this made any difference to what I caught. I again used mixed coloured maggots (fishing with with two on the hook) and fed the swim with a few at regular intervals. I also tried to make a mental note of how many fish of each species I was catching.

As usual the most prolific fish was the small roach. I caught over twenty of these and none of a notable size. Later I started catching a few perch, starting with one of just about an inch long! Behind me there was a glorious red sunset and, although it was still mild (perhaps 11 degrees C), there was an irritating blustery wind. I then caught a small rudd, the only one of the day. As dusk began to fall I started to hook bigger perch getting up to six in the end and the penultimate one was a beauty, the second largest I have caught down here:

This fish is about 11.5 inches in length and probably weighs about a pound. I had noticed that the perch were taking the bait in snatching fashion making the float go under dramatically. I had a number of good sized fish in succession, showing that a shoal had probably gathered where I had been feeding the swim. It was so dark by the time I had caught this fish I had to use flash on my camera to get its photo. A nice way to end the day.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.