the freshwater for a change and the species I had in mind were Dace
and Perch.
I arrived at where I intended to fish and I could see shoals of smallish
dace with some bigger fish a bit deeper down swimming up and down
the canal. Having never caught a dace I initially tried a small float setup with
a small hook size18 or 20 and a small section of power isome. I fished this way
for a good two hours with a few small taps here and there just to get my hopes
up.
I was then approached by a pair of fisheries officers asking a few questions like
what are you fishing for? etc... Which was good to see them out and about doing their
job.
A change of tactics then stil trying for a dace a 0.5g jighead with a small section
of isome slowly retrieved at various depths but again nothing.
So I then decided to go after perch and these little guys were more than willing to take
whatever they could get their mouths around in the hour that I fished for them I must
have had around 20-25 all caught on varying lures from curltail grubs to power isomes
One thing i did notice however was that the weight of the jighead made a massive difference to
whether or not the fish came at the lure. I started with a 1g head and was getting fish after fish although
it was difficult to get down through the leaves on the surface of the water. Switched to a 2g head with the same lure and getting through the cover on the surface was no problem but the fish didnt want to
know switched back and fish on. I suppose the lure fell through the water column at too fast a rate and wasnt in the strike zone long enough, I've had the same with Pollock and Bass but this was the first time I had seen it make a difference to Perch which are normally very obliging.
Anyway I headed home and called it a day. The next day on my break from work I decided to head to my local pier for a quick half hour session.
I rigged up my gear dropshot style and began to fish down the sides of the walls I managed a few small
coalies straight away and then got a much better bite which turned out to be a nice corkwing
All quite then for a little while and I moved spot dropped the rig to the bottom and almost immediately
felt some bites which I had never felt before a very fast series of tiny bites. I didnt know what it
was so after some patience I eventually hooked the fish causing this
A tiny Scad(horse mackeral) or ''Aji'' as they are known in Japan this is another first for me and I have
to say I was delighted with it albeit small but perfectly formed.
I hoped you enjoyed reading,
Tight lines,
Jay
