First up.....Perch

The Lagoon

With a few days off work between now and the end of the Easter Bank Holiday I'm planning to get out for a few Perch sessions and with the close season now in effect on the rivers the two club venues that remain open are the Littleton complex in Shepperton which comprises Ellis Water, an 86 acre mature gravel pit linked by a narrow causeway to a smaller lake known as The Lagoon, and Crabtree lake in nearby Thorpe.

Having fished the Lagoon for Pike a few times last season I've a fairly good knowledge of it's layout, which swims are most likely to produce and at a mere 6 acres it's a lot less imposing than it's much larger and somewhat featureless neighbour.

Crabtree lake I've not fished before and I'm looking forward to paying it a first visit.

The minimum qualifying weight for the clubs specimen trophy for Perch from Littleton is 2lb 8oz with 2lb for Crabtree and as my target's 2lb they seem a good place to start.

Why Perch? Well it's a little bit too early for Tench in my book which I prefer to fish for during the first weeks of a new season and while there are also Roach and Bream present in the Lagoon being a lover of rivers I'd prefer to target both of these on the Thames. 

Now from what I've read about Perch the consensus seems to be that they hate resistance, dropping the bait at the first sign of it so the plan is to fish a low resistance running ledger rig with a decent hook link length on one rod and a float on the second with the bait set 3-4 inches or more overdepth.

For hook baits I'll be starting with prawn on one rod with one or two worm halves tipped with a single red maggot (to stop the worms wriggling free) on a second, the aim of using worm halves is to use their juices as an attractor.

Groundbait will be seedling compost laced with chopped worm, prawn, liquidised bread and squashed up red maggot which I'll be feeding in small balls over a quite a tight area. The plan is to also loose feed a few red maggots on and off in an attempt to attract small prey fish into the swim.

As Perch are known to feed more actively during periods of low light the intention is begin each session during the early afternoon and fish through until dark...which also means no getting up early on my days off!