A Night-Mare start but a PB Perch.

A mate Simon told me about this pool, he just so happens he lives in Warwick and it's on his doorstep, I'm only ten minutes away too so how come I didn't know about it, well it's pretty well hidden and cannot be seen from the road. He ain't the best fisherman bless him but he did pretty well when he fished it in the summer, so with the rivers in a bit of a state a plan was set to fish it Sunday morning.

A bit of research and emailing I found it contained some decent Perch, now we all know Roach and Perch don't really mind the winter months so again Perch was my target, Simon, well, anything that swims would do.

I had some King prawns flavoured in CC Moores, shrimp, krill and worm which I've has some success with in the past but I also had a job lot of lobworms.

It didn't start too well, I usually fish from dawn for 4 or 5 hours but as I was picking up Simon the earliest he could do was 8.15am as he had to drop his Son at his parents. It didn't help that the heavy overnight frost meant Simon was taking it easy driving back from Shipston-Upon-Stour in his ultimate driving machine, his RWD BMW, which doesn't seem to work when it's anything but dry roads.

Anyway back to the fishing, it didn't really matter that Simon was 20 minutes late as when we turned up at the gates, they were locked. B*gger....

Luckily for us though the bailiffs number was displayed so I rang and he answered. He didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to fish today but good on him as 15 minutes later he was wandering over the frost covered grass with a set of keys, probably cursing the two of us that got him out of bed.

With time now limited, a quick chat with the bailiff and a fiver paid I set-up at peg 8, with Simon the next peg down. It's not a huge pool by any means but has some really interesting swims and the bush cover to my left looked a Perch haven. Yes, that's ice you can see in the picture below and it was mobile too as the sheet moved around the pool during the first couple of hours until the suns rays took hold.

With the sun quite strong I think it put the Perch off as it really was slow going with only a small Perch on prawn to show for it.

Fishing is all about patience though isn't it and eventually the sun was covered by some cloud, the bites started to come and Simon managed to catch a similar size Perch as mine, things were looking up.

I loose fed some more chopped worm and dead maggot and it didn't take long for my double lobworm hookbait to be sucked up by something and the float was sailing under the water. I tend to wait till the float is under the water for a decent amount of time before striking and when I did I was met with solid resistance. It felt like a decent Perch.

They do fight well and there is nothing more impressive than a good'un. When it surfaced I knew it was one of the biggest Perch I've caught. Not as big as the one I caught at Centre Parcs Elveden but sadly not having scales that one I couldn't weigh.

It looked bigger then it weighed but 2lb 9oz it was still a PB, I was well chuffed,  it's another venue that has potential and makes a change to College pool, Simon also managed a 1.8oz Perch at last knockings, we'll be back as there are much bigger ones in here I'm sure.

With the river season on the countdown, hopefully Chub next weekend, please no more rain. I want a 6 lber before the season closes.