Specimen Rudd and Perch Exploits.

 Of late, I haven't managed much time out on the bank, fishing time has been there but the conditions have been poor to say the least, the time I have spent out have been in search of Rudd and Perch both of which I am targeting very large specimens, this season I really want to get some really big fish on the bank, not that last season was a disaster........far from it.

 The Rudd that I sought after are on a network of canals in the south of England, whereabouts are unknown yet as I have walked maybe 20 miles of the canals already, with two trips not turning up any Rudd myself and fellow stalker Simon Daley have made it our task to locate them, on that occasion we did finally find those bars of gold and crimson fins, the only issue was they ranged from 2oz to 10oz, not the size we've gone to bed dreaming of but where the small ones are, larger are surely present, somewhere. After faffing around with a few of those fish we had a go at stalking some decent Carp and Tench that were present, I did manage a Carp but nothing large. The Tench on the other hand were of a fairly decent size, maybe 6lbs or so, we spent the best part of the day searching but we didn't track those larger Rudd, we will certainly be back though.

I can see you! Stalking is so much fun.

Probably never seen an angler before. Pioneering.

 On to the Carp and I have some more success with them in the shape of another mid-double Common and a pretty Mirror of around 15lbs too, not immaculate and appears to be quite an old fish, nice to have caught it though, usual stalking tactics and bread the downfall on both occasions.

Not even 6am!

 Then on the Sunday (Day after the Rudd trip) I headed to a tiny lake in the Dorset countryside with Simon again, this time in search of Perch, but these aren't just any Perch, these fish grow to exceptional sizes and the chance of a 3lb fish was very good and a 4?, well almost as good but a 5?? unsure as to whether the lake holds them but you wouldn't bet against it as the lake holds a serious amount of Rudd which are there in seriously high numbers, the size in which a Perch with a bucket gob could easily whoof down.

 For all of the small Rudd and Perch caught throughout the day I couldn't manage anything large, Carp proved to be a right pain in the backside too as I fished with prawns for the majority of the day and the float sat motionless for long periods of time, so when the float lifted and slipped away around 20 minutes before dusk you could imagine my excitement, could it be?? Once I struck it became clear fairly quickly that it was no Perch but yet another pesky Carp, most averaged around the 10lbs mark but when you have a specific target in mind these certainly are not what you want to be catching.

 Unfortunately the time came to pack up and was willing my rod to go walkabout but alas, it stayed dead still as it had for large swathes of the day. Disappointing, was trying to work out why they weren't having it.

(Photos to come)....after Thailand so in June unfortunately.