The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Olly wrote: ↑Wed Aug 29, 2018 6:57 pm I may be wrong but they seem to have a shortish lifespan?

Hence here today & gone tomorrow which happened on a section of the Kennet I fished. 2s a plenty and the occasional 3+. Then not even small ones!

Yes. There is a pond near me which was stuffed full of 2lb perch a few years ago and I would have up to 5 in a couple of hours before dusk. A 2lb'er was guaranteed if you fish a big prawn yet nearly none less than 2lb and the smallest I had was about 1lb but nothing else.
Then they all suddenly went and now I can't catch any perch from there.

Have you tried a different bait or method?
It's probably an old wives'/angler's tale, but I recall reading that each perch will only make the same mistake once...

Vole wrote: ↑Wed Aug 29, 2018 10:26 pm Have you tried a different bait or method?
It's probably an old wives'/angler's tale, but I recall reading that each perch will only make the same mistake once...

That's definitely not true. I caught many of those 2lb'ers over and over again to king prawn.

That's reassuring; I can cope with being out-thunk by chub, but anything else is a bit infra dig.
Still worth breaking out an Ondex though, perhaps?

MGs wrote: ↑Wed Aug 29, 2018 7:38 pm I've recently started catching perch on corn. Not moving but static on the bottom. I think it may say more about the food levels in the lake rather than the liking of perch for corn

After a delay, I at last for round to reading all of the interesting replies and, MGs, yours is the only one that reflects the experience of the 3 of us this year. Corn on the bottom.

The food levels issue might well apply to all bar one of the lakes during the hot dry spell. That one is fed by a reliable spring and was packed full of food!

Perch snapping instinctively at a piece of corn being reeled in I can buy into, Ive even caught them on empty hooks, though that has never knowingly happened to me yet.

I'm not sure of the energy value of sweetcorn, when eaten by fish. Maybe the perch have worked out that it is an easy source of food and therefore a better bet than chasing after prey fish and bugs.

I had the same thing reference a water full of big Perch then the disappeared. We used to go there and you could be curtain of Catch at least one or two big Perch. Our best catch was 26 up to almost 2 1/2 pound. Then about 18 months ago they just vanished??You don't even catch many small perch anymore when you could catch a "Wasp" one a chuck before. Maybe they have died off???

Never had a Perch on Corn but I have had quite a few on Meat..

I've had a perch of about a pound this season on corn hard on the bottom from the Dorset Stour. Last year I had four one day on bread.

I had another session today. Plenty of perch on meat to 1lb 4oz. They are still taking corn. A new one on me, I also caught one on bread flake! Yet again in wasn't moving, the bait had been static for some time, fished hard on the bottom.

The baits you think are static on the bottom may well be moving due to water being pushed and swirled around them by the fins of fish like roach and bream. The perch sees a flash of yellow and white and grabs it. Without a camera down there filming the perch eating the corn it's pure speculation as to just how static the baits like corn and bread are. I think it's more likely that they move quite a lot when other fish are feeding right next to the hook bait.