My Big Perch Searches
— Part 1 —
by Mike Hobbs

(with some extra photos from our library
and drawings by Joe Brock)

BIG PERCH
By my own personal reckoning any perch over 2 lb. is what I call a big perch; and I mean 2 lb. properly weighed, not guessed or estimated etc.! To me, anything over 3 lb. is a mega-perch and one over 4 lb. is a fish of a life-time. They're what I'm searching for all the time, with my lures and baits.

Over the years I've been lucky enough to catch my share of 2+ lb and 3+ lb perch but I haven't had a 4 lb one ..... yet! Big perch whatever their size, are not easy to catch, I can tell you from years of experience. My Personal Bests so far are 3 lb 5 oz on a lure (Toby spoon) and 3 lb 11 oz on a small deadbait (roach) so I guess you could say that baits probably stand a better chance of catching the biggies, but lures aren't very far behind.

LOCATION
Obviously locating potential venues that hold big perch is the first job in any search. I do this mainly by chatting to my mates who match and specimen fish all over the county and country. Also I read fishing newspapers and magazines. I also pore all over Ordnance Survey maps looking for likely lakes, pits and ponds etc.

Then, if I can find out who they are, I go and ask the owners very nicely if I can fish their lake or whatever. Some of them are OK about it but others tell me to clear off but I reckon that as long as I get to fish even a few nice new perchy places every year, the effort and aggro is worth it.

Once I've found and decided on a particular location that I reckon might hold some big perch, first off I usually give a quick bash and a going over with a spinner, spinnerbait or spoon. You never know what snags there are in a new place so I usually plump for one of my medium sized spinnerbaits to see if I can tempt a perch or two. Even if I don't get a perch I usually connect with a pike or two. If perch do show, then I go back and give it a proper going over, with baits & lures, more than once of it's not too far to travel.

LURES FOR BIG PERCH
I think that quite often a lot of cobblers is talked and written about what lures you should or shouldn’t use or are best for perch, especially big perch. In my experience of more than 30 years of perch searching with baits and lures in all sorts of venues, personally I still couldn’t say for definite which lures might be best for big perch for which venues and at what times of year and weather conditions etc. All I can do is to give you some idea of what I do or have done over the years. It’s worked for me so it just might work for you.

There’s not doubt that big perch do sometimes take surprisingly big lures on some venues but personally speaking I would say that overall my smaller lures work much better more often than my large ones for getting results in my big perch searches.

I think which lures work best depends much more on the weather, light levels, water conditions, temperature and time of year than anything else. Obviously there are more prey fish around at some times of the year than others and this also must have some effect. But by and large, I would say that small lures fished slowly and close to the bottom especially when the water’s cold, have got me most of my best results.

While I think about it, I should say that in my opinion the trebles that come fitted to a lot of lures are much too large for my liking; I change them straight away and don’t often use hooks bigger than size 6 or 8. I go for Gamakatsu trebles which I can found are very good.

LURE DEPTH, SPEED & ACTION
You can only fish spinners, spoons and jig-heads so slowly and then I use small suspending plugs like Husky Jerk (Rapala) that just hang very nicely suspended in the water very natural looking when you stop winding in. This is exactly when I’ve had a lot of hits from big perch, and I mean 2+ lb perch.

For me the problem with a lot of other plugs that otherwise ought to be the biz for big perch is that they’re far too buoyant for my liking. Small and medium fat alphabet plugs are the worst offenders in my book. Fortunately there are a couple of neat dodges that you can easily use to stop these plugs from floating back up to the surface too quickly.

First off, if my plugs is hollow I drill a small hole in the top and put in some small tungsten shot ‘til it suspends just right when it’s got a trace attached. If my little fat plug is to small for that trick or isn’t hollow, I get some of that nice tungsten sheet that you can get from fly making materials suppliers and stick on some thin strips underneath and at the front of the plug until its buoyancy is just right. From what I’ve read, lots of lure anglers are also very wised-up to these neat little dodges.

If you want my opinion after a lot of years big perch searching (and catching!) I would say that many perchers are probably lure fishing far too fast and too shallow, and with plugs that are too buoyant, and that probably goes for a lot of pikers too from what I’ve seen when I’m out and about.

GETTING RESULTS
I’ve already said about small suspending plugs, spinners, ,spinnerbaits etc. being just as good for big perch but there are times and places when I’ve found that either I’ve had to step up in lure size or to step down to get any results. Take trout reservoirs for one example: quite often they hold big perch (and big pike) but in a lot of them you’re not allowed to use lures, well not regularly anyway. So as you can’t beat the rules, I join them and step down in size to a nice sinking gold-headed nymph with a fast-sinking fly line or braid and this gives me a better chance of getting down to those mega-perch.

On the other hand, when and where you are allowed to use lures and the average prey size is comparatively large as on trout reservoirs, I reckon to try much bigger lures like those banana-shaped ones with violent erratic actions. The Kwikfish is my fave but there are all sorts of similar ones around and they’re all worth a go for big perch.

And in Part 2, I’ll be sharing some more of my hints and tips to help with your big perch searches.

In the meantime, happy perching !
Mike Hobbs

Editorial Comment
Thanks for that very interesting article, Mike. Wasn't it Dick Walker who once said something along the lines that nothing looks bigger than a big perch? Now we all know what he meant! We look forward to Part 2 !

Please e-mail any comments or feedback to us,
Nick Caine (Editor), or Brian Barwell (Deputy Editor)
NickCaine @ Talk21.com

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