Perch

In order to catch the bigger than average specimens of perch I find that making your baitfish look as natural as possible is the best approach. Use as little lead as you can, no wire trace (unless there are hordes of pike), flouro-carbon hooklenghts if the water is clear, and one hook - preferably a single - as small as you can get away with without detrimental effects on the hooking potential. . Increasing the bait fish size is one way of reducing the effect of crude tackle, and perch do take fairly large baits. Ask yourself what parts you really need. Sometimes I find that I, without thinking, add some split shots just out of old habit - even though the Perch are chasing fry on the surface, with their fins poking out of the water!

A perch this size (2075g) can swallow a large bait - photo Theis Kragh

Free-line
One incident a few years back got me thinking. I was fishing for perch in a large clear water lake with a mate. It was a hot day in August, not a cloud in the sky, no wind what so ever. We had fished all morning and at noon we were ready to give up and go home - we had caught nothing of interest. We had just fished a small ridge very thoroughly, working our small roach fished sink-and-draw-style over every inch of bottom, and decided to take a "cuppa" whilst trying to come up with a last line of attack. Niclas had lost his lead in a snag - but still had his 100 gram roach on the hook - he just left it swimming around at it's own accord. Without warning his rod slammed around, and he was fighting a large fish. We were certain it was a pike, so he played it quite hard. Still, the fish just would not leave the bottom. In hindsight we should have realized that the fish was, in fact, a large Perch. Some 10 minutes later the fish slowly started to get tired. Gradually it came closer and closer to the surface. Suddenly we could see it - a huge Perch - green with jet black stripes and bright red fins that looked on fire. We had caught a number of Perch close to 50cm long that summer, and this was clearly longer than any we had seen, more high backed (almost the shape of a bream) than the others - and nearly twice as wide! It was exhausted - ready for the net. To his day I nearly cry when I remember the sight of it opening it's mouth - the roach falling out - the Perch suddenly finding some reserve of energy - diving, in slow motion, out of sight. The hook had turned into the bait, the Perch had never been hooked! That problem can, we have learned since, be overcome by hooking a small piece of rubber (e.g. from a baloon) after attaching the bait. I am convinced that he would not have come in contact with that Perch had he not lost his lead.

Caught on a free-lined Rudd

Freelining perch is a simple, yet incredibly effective way of fishing. I generally use either a through action avon rod or a stepped up float rod (such as the Drennan Tenchfloat) coupled with a centre-pin reel for this type of fishing. A fixed spool reel works, nearly, as well. Free-lining is not recommended if you have to fish at large depth or when strong winds make bite detection hard (if perch get too much time before you strike they can be hard indeed to unhook without causing them damage).

Bottom bouncing
In the spring and autumn Perch are generally found in deeper water. That is the time for bottom bouncing. I generally use two rods with a simple pater-noster with a long(ish) tail of about 1-1.5 metres. Drennan's still-water feeder rod is my favourite, but any rod with a quivertip - or a soft tip - will do.

Bottom-bouncing in October

Caught on a bottom-bounced roach in November, an hour after sunset

The large Perch are often found on really flat, quite boring, deep-bottoms in late autumn. An echo-sounder is invaluable to find concentrations of small fish. Once you find a large school it usually pays off to stay in that area, even if you don't get any bites straight away - the perch are seldom far away. The edges of water currents can really be hot spots.

Look for "flat streaks" on the surface - they are water currents