Don Valley Specimen Group
River Ouse Perch in winter

It was the early hours of the morning when I pulled up outside my regular fishing partner Lee Swords house, after loading his never-ending mountain of tackle into the car we were off down the M1. After a couple of hours driving we arrived on the banks of the Great Ouse somewhere near Milton Keynes. After a good walk round on what is a very scenic fishery, full of features like overhanging trees and undercut banks, we picked a couple of swims which we thought would hold a few fish, this was based on the fact that I had seen the swims in the summer when they where covered in reeds and bullrushes and now they have all died off access would be a lot easier.

Once the swim was sorted two areas were fed, one upstream and one downstream with six or seven chopped worms in each, topping it up with a few more worms every hour or so. The tackle for this type of fishing is just a feeder or Avon rod loaded with 6lb line, the terminal tackle is a light bomb or link ledger on a low resistance run ring and a 3lb hooklength, the hook should be anything from a size 14 to a size 8 depending on the size of bait.

Bait would be a mixture of lob worms and dendrabinas (or whatever they are called), having two types of worm allows you to maximize your options as some times dendras will outfish lobs

Bite indication would be homemade ultra light hangers (I used to use silver foil but it was next to useless in any sort of wind and if I struck into a bite it would fly off in to the undergrowth never to be seen again) so as to minimize any resistance along with a set of Delkins to pick up any indications of a bite and with the rod tips just under the water to keep the wind off the line every thing was ready.

It wasn’t long before Lee started catching perch in the 2lb class and even the odd small pike, then as the afternoon wore on he landed a 3lb fish which signalled to me that the 'big girls' had moved in to the area - and sure enough I took a 3lb7oz specimen quickly followed by a 2lb 8oz fish and a half hour later a 3lb 1oz fish.

Lee managed a couple more 'threes' and a few smaller ones before it got dark, so we packed the gear away having had a good days fishing and headed back up the M1, planning our next trip to this perch Mecca.

Martin Womble.
DVSG