Back for more perch

Yesterday I was back at the same spot that I have been to the last couple of times which is close to where the dyke meets the river Bure. It was colder today, something like 8 or 9 degrees C and a bit of a nagging breeze made it seem chilly sitting by the waterside. At least the strong wind had died down and it was dry and sunny for the most part.

I was catching plenty of fish again today but I found that they had moved slightly round the jetty. I don't understand why this happens but it must be something to do with the conditions or the tide. Why should one bit of water be somewhat dead whereas just a few feet away another bit provides plenty of fish? It just goes to show that if you aren't catching anything you should just move on somewhere else.

I had a variety of species today. The ubiquitous roach of course and these were slightly better than tiddlers. What also turned up were one or two very small bream. They look a bit like roach, but they appear to be entirely silver in colour. They do hybridise so I wouldn't like to say for sure that they were pure bream but they looked like it. I also had a couple of rudd, one of which was getting to be something reasonable but didn't need a net.

The main attraction of the day was catching perch which seem to like this spot. I had four today, all of a reasonable size and all needing to be netted in. Here they are in the order I caught them:

This one (above) is 21cm in length or 8.5 inches.

This second one (above) is 20cm or 8 inches.

This third one (above) is 20.5 cm or 8 inches.

This fourth one was the largest and is 27cm or 10.5 inches.

Although the first three fish are very similar in size, they are not the same fish. If you look at the vertical dark bandings they are all slightly different.

All pictures and text copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016