First Perch session this September

[Grumpy]

After a couple of fruitless sessions after Tench I decided to change tack and start Perch fishing.Yesterday(Friday)was my first effort.Venue was the River Chelmer below Chelmsford.Here the river is canalised with 13 locks between Chelmsford and Maldon.
I used modern'ish gear,the oldest was a Mitchell 324 circa 1974.End tackle was as simple as it gets,a small chubber taking a couple of BB,size 10 hook baited with a dendrobeana.
The aim was to move around trying likely places and cover plenty of water.Have recently lightened the load I usually carry made this a breeze,pick up the small bag,rod,net and go.
Starting by one of the locks I caught small Perch from the off,mainly small but a few bigger ones up to about 10oz.Moving from swim to swim and catching from most of them I eventually arrived at a swim with a short length of concrete bank.Looking down into about five feet of clear water I could just make out some small Perch milling about.The bank was about fifteen yards long ending in a group of reeds,sorry no pics Doh!Dropping the tackle in I inched it towards the reeds.I caught three small Perch straight away then it all went quiet.I crept to the spot,looked down and a small group of much larger Perch had moved in. I moved back,dropped the tackle in and let it creep towards the reeds.The float went under and I connected with a good fish.At first I thought I had hooked a large Chub as it fought so hard.After 3-4 minutes I landed it and it was a fine Perch of 1lb 11oz,not a big one but very satisfying with lovely markings.
Next run down I hooked another,a very different,hard fight and an Eel of about 2lb was landed.The Perch actually fought harder than the Eel!
The swim died after that so,moving on I had several more small Perch before calling it a day about 7-15pm.
I had about twenty Perch in total,they were all caught within a foot of the marginal growth,nothing in open water.A fine few hours spent in some lovely countryside.I am hoping for my first "three" this season,fingers crossed!

1lb 11oz.JPG

[ReelMaker]

Good evening sir,the fishing looks good on the River Chelmer,a lovely Perch on light tackle travelling light.well done Terry

[PershoreHarrier]

A fine looking Perch - well done.

[Coral Maestro]

A lovely Perch and a great write up. Well done!

[Harry H]

Lovely looking Perch
Both my nephews have boats on the Chelmer and have told me of seeing some really big Perch, just need the current situation to calm down so I can take up the offer of a trip.