The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

I have been fishing at this particular club water on and off for about 25 years and only ever caught tiny Perch.
Its a small farm reservoir probably about 100 yards x 40yards and a depth of about 5ft to 9ft at the dam end. It is stocked with Carp to 20lb but most around 8-10lb,Tench to 8lb most around 3lb and plenty of Roach. I've tried size 6 hooks with large Prawns, Maggots, Lob and Red worms.
Any thoughts on what to try?

It may be worth trying a small spinning outfit

A famous angler, Wilfred Cutting once said - 'the best bait for a big perch is a little perch". He used the gill filament as bait.
Details are in E Marshall-Hardy's (formerly the Editor of Angling) book - Angling Ways.

I can relate to this only too well .
From experience I would suggest you try fishing a different water when you are after perch
My local dam has a healthy head of roach and bream ,some tench to 4lb and a handful of carp between 8 and 24 lb but despite spending many hours fishing for perch I've not had one over 6 inch.
The carp are notoriously difficult to catch and yet I've had more carp than perch of 6 inch when float fishing prawns.
I had a few small perch spinning with small mepps about four years ago but none this last year.
The water is match fished in winter and I have only seen a photo of a 1.5 lb perch from about 4-5 years ago and there are no pike in the water
I ve often wondered about the lack of decent sized perch in the water
I fish another local dam that has been stocked with small mirror and common carp and have had a number of perch that at least put a bend in my rod even if not large by TFF standards

Sorry a little confused, are you after the larger perch? Or the other residents? If it's the Perch then remember that while small specimens tend to hang around together the larger chaps tend to hang back a bit. Have a chat with other anglers and pick there brains

I used to fish a small reservoir which regularly produced perch over the 3lb mark. But once carp where introduced into the water it coloured up and the big perch were very rarely seen.
They were still sometimes caught as the night drew in and usually on dead baits meant for pike.
It was assumed that their vision had been impaired by the muddy water which made them hunt by scent alone. It was also noticed how their bright colouring vanished and they changed to a dull brown.

Wal.

Perch are a shoal fish - so they stick together. As they get bigger and older (the fish we want to catch) they have decreased in number due to a whole variety of things, predation, deep hooking, etc.

So a shoal of 2lb perch may be just 10 fish - by the time they get to 3, maybe 2 or 3 fish. By 4lb maybe only one is left! If it is lucky!
Same could be said of roach, rudd, bream, barbel, etc.

Thanks Gents for all your advice,might take my spinning rod for an outing for the last hour after work tomorrow time permitting. Saturday looks good so I think it's about time the Matchmaster got christened and the Avon can have a ledgered dead bait to test that theory.
Thanks again

Ondex and Mepps always did it for me. I'll give them a go on our lake when the water looks less like builders tea

MGs wrote:Ondex and Mepps always did it for me. I'll give them a go on our lake when the water looks less like builders tea

Really like the Ondex spinners if I could only have one lure in my box it would be one of those