A clonking pair of perch at Irstead Shoals

In the last few weeks I have been fishing at a number of local places on the broads; Gayes staithe in Neatishead, Womack Water in Ludham and Barton Turf and Irstead staithes. It hasn't been easy going and at times rather frustrating. One of the places I like most is Irstead where the river Ant passes through some gravely bottomed shoals. Here the fishing does seem a bit more reliable and even though boats pass the staithe on a regular basis as they make their way to and from Barton Broad, there is enough slack water on the side of the river for peaceful fishing.

I was there yesterday morning from about 10am to 1pm. A lovely warm late summer morning with a bit of a breeze at my back. I was float fishing as usual and trying to use up the remainder of the maggots I had bought a week back which were rapidly turning into casters. Thinking that the maggots would work best I had been putting a pair of these on a size 16 hook and fishing in the shallower water of an inlet in the moorings. Initially things looked promising and I was catching a few roach, skimmers, gudgeon and one or two perch. However, after a while things began to go quiet and so I thought I would switch to a pair of casters instead to see if a change of bait would tempt a fish. I had been feeding in mainly casters into the water as they were what I had most of in my bait tin.

To my surprise I had a good bite and I pulled in a reasonable size roach. The bigger roach do go for this sort of bait. Again I was out with more casters and then I had something on the line which felt like a very good fish. To my utter surprise it was a very nice sized perch:-

This fish is about 10.5 inches and probably weighs about 14oz. I wouldn't have thought that perch would be interested in an inert bait like this. After a while, things went quiet again, and so I moved around so that I was fishing more in the main river. I began to have more bites and a few fish again and just before I had to go, this veritable clonker (in my opinion!) took my casters again:-

When I hooked this I thought I had got a small pike on the end of my line. This fish is approaching 11.5 inches and may weigh close to a pound.

Going back to discuss some of the other locations I have fished in recent weeks, I thought Gayes staithe in Neatishead was promising. The last time I was there I began fishing to the left of the promontory:-

Having been catching a selection of small roach, rudd and perch I decided to move over to the right side and this seemed more productive. The best fish I had that day was this small bream:-

This fish is about 10 inches in length and maybe weighs 9 or 10oz.

The other locations at Barton Turf and Womack Water were hard work. Long periods of not catching much and it is probably best to invest in some ground bait to attract in some fish.

All text and pictures copyright Duncan Hale-Sutton 2016.