Arrival time: 09.30
Weather: Light cloud cover for most of the day. Not too cold and hardly any wind.
Tackle: 9ft Shimano Aero X1 'Finesse Feeder' rod with 1oz quiver, Shimano Exage 1000RC reel, 5lb line direct to 14 eyed hook.
Baits: Maggots and worms.
Fish: All perch with just one gudgeon

With autumn beginning to make itself felt through cooler weather and drizzly days, it seemed a good time to target perch. My best perch session was a few years ago on the top stream and that's where I decided to go, hoping for a repeat performance. But I have had such hopes before and they weren't realised. So would it be different this time? Well, for a long time it certainly didn't seem like it.

My setup was the same as I had used on my memorable perch session back in 2022. A light feeder rod with a 1oz quivertip. I fished close to the margin but far enough out to avoid any marginal weed. Because of the difficulty of placing my chair in the restricted space I decided to sit on my unhooking mat on the edge of the footpath behind me. There was no immediate action but after casting a bit further downstream the quiver tip yanked round in an almost chub-like manner. As I moved forward to strike my feet slipped down the slightly sloping muddy ground and I slid off the unhooking mat, my waterproof trousers not offering much friction with the similar material on the mat. While this was happening I missed the bite!

I rearranged things such that I could place the chair in a stable position and looked forward to more bites. But nothing came, which was all the more frustrating given the bite I had missed. This went on for a while with not a touch on the quiver tip and no sign that the maggots had even been nibbled. I decided on a move. If it hadn't been for that missed bite I would have moved even sooner.

I decided to try just below the small weir on Sismey Island where I had caught a few decent roach previously. Having encountered weed when casting downstream I tried casting up towards the small weir, close to the far side reeds that looked a bit 'perchy'. I soon got a nibble on maggots and second cast I caught a small gudgeon. A bit later a drop back bite produced a small perch. So the blank had been avoided and the target species caught. But that missed bite in the first swim was still bugging me so I decided to go back there for the last couple of hours.

Back where I started, once again there were no immediate bites or nibbles. I decided to try with a maggot feeder and after a couple of casts a firm pull resulted in my second perch of the session. I don't much like maggot feeders as they cause a lot of disturbance when cast, so after about half a dozen casts, which had deposited a few maggots on the bottom, I decided to return to using a small bomb leger.

Once again there was nothing doing and I was ready to pack up. But as a last throw of the dice I attached a small float by the bottom eye only to the feeder link. Amazingly I was soon into my first perch using this approach. I had overlooked the fact that by attaching the float in this way there was nothing to stop it riding up the line as the feeder link was on a sliding bead. It was in effect acting like a slider float with no stop knot to set the depth! This was corrected by placing a shot on the other side of the float, which then cocked properly, making bite detection easier. A couple more perch followed.

However, when the float had been sliding up the line the bait had obviously sunk deeper. So I decided to fish a bit deeper but found that the line had knotted itself around the sliding link, locking the float and requiring cutting and retackling to sort out. As it was approaching my time to pack up I decided instead to remove the float and free line the worm bait with just a small shot on the line. I started by watching for line movement on the surface but then changed to feeling the line. And a number of perch then came to this method. In the end a lost count of the number of perch I caught. Probably getting on for ten or so. They were all decent fish although I didn't manage to catch one of the bigger ones that I know frequent this stretch. But I was more than satisfied after what, up until the last knockings, had been a very challenging session. And I had discovered the potential of free lining for perch, something I will certainly try again.