It's been a great winter for Britain’s perch anglers, and while many of the biggest fish have come from reservoirs, there are some truly huge ones lurking in our rivers too, as Sam Edmonds proved.
The lure fishing specialist was targeting a stretch of the River Lea when he landed a superb specimen of 5lb 3oz, setting a new personal best in the process.
As was the case with many rivers, persistent cold rains had rendered the Lea in a poor state to fish for the past few months. But when water levels briefly dropped back, Sam jumped at the chance to make a few casts.
“I wanted to make the most of the conditions, and headed to an area where I’d caught some nice perch in the past, but which I hadn’t fished for a few years,” he told us.
“I had an amazing start. On my second cast, I lost a fish, then cast out again and had another take immediately, which turned out to be a perch of 4lb 7oz – my first of the year! About an hour later I caught another of 3lb 12oz, before then heading home.”
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Knowing he was on to something, Sam was keen to make the most of the situation.
“Heavy rain had been forecast again, so I made the effort to squeeze in one more two-hour trip the next day, just before the bad weather arrived and put the river out of sorts again,” he explained.
“Returning to the same area, and again on my third cast, I hooked another perch.
“This fish felt even bigger than the ones I’d landed just a few days earlier.”
“I gasped in shock when I netted it, and then again when the scales revealed a weight of 5lb 3oz!”
Both Sam’s fish fell to a Fox Rage Mini Fry – a small soft plastic pattern that he fished Texas-style on a 4g cheb rig.
