Retrieve with speed?

After what has felt like years but was only a few months of waiting I finally got the freshwater season started last Friday evening.

Before heading to the local canal (which does observe the river close season) I spent a good 20 minutes in the garage pondering lure choices before taking almost everything I could carry with me as well as an LRF 0-7g lure rod and heavier spinning rod to cover some options.

Having never really used topwaters in freshwater I am determined to learn this technique, and with that in mind I clipped on a floating soft plastic frog. This lure has a popper like front end spitting water as it moves. It also has a ‘rat like’ fabric tail. I picked this up in fishing shop in Matsumoto-Japan where the only real lure fishing species locally would be trout and char. I can see this lure being great for American freshwater bass angling and also I think it will be good for bigger perch as well as pike and chub in the UK.

I had about 20 casts with no action or follows so quickly made a change to a cheap hard plastic sinking crank bait. This lure really wobbled in the water and has an added rattle and as it sink when left still it allows you to fish different depths with different speeds of retrieve. I did feel a little knock whilst casting this lure but it my have been weed? No further action followed so it was time to switch again.

I tried my trusted Fiiish Black Minnow in 70mm with the 6g shore jig head in Khaki colour which has been a very successful lure for me with perch fishing. I had a few shy bites which when I tried to set the hook popped out of the fished mouth. It was clear to me after a few of these bites and also seeing a few of the fish follow in close to my feet that the perch round me were small. Possibly too small to get the whole of the crogg sweedless hook up to the hookpoint in the fish.

So it was time to change tactics.

I wanted the lighter approach so swapped rods to the 0-7g option and tied on a little fly fishing snap so I could change lures quickly to find what these little critters wanted.

First went on my lovely new toy also from the Japanese shop.

1st cast and I saw several perch almost fighting each other for pole position to chase the lure to my feet but still no hookup.

2nd cast nothing. 3rd cast I was hit free 2 turns of the reel handle and a few seconds later I was landing my first fish of the new season. A small fish of about half a pound but it was much bigger than the wasps I had seen chasing so far. Obviously the lure stayed on for a short while but the follows died off…. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong.

After a few further casts with no bites I tried to go even lighter with a 1g jig head and a small soft plastic. I had a couple of follows and a tail nip but no hookup. I swapped through a few different shapes and colours and was finding the same thing each time. The fish were following but not biting with enough intent to take enough of the lure to get the hook. These lures were less than an inch long!!!!

Eventually I started to try spinners and another new lure but with nothing working I went back to the little plug.

At first nothing the I started to vary the retrieve to change the action of the lure. When ripping fast the wobble looked so realistic but I was worried the retrieve maybe too fast for the fish to keep up. I was wrong!

I saw a fish follow right to the surface before turning away. I cast over the same area. Follows again, and then more follows, and eventually the smallest perch I think I have ever caught had a go at the tail treble and I reeled him in. he came from underneath out of nowhere at the last second.

A quick photo, and a quick release, and something to really think about on the way home.

Sunday evening after completing some chores in the garden I decided to treat my self to another session.

I didn’t bother with all the gear this time. A small pocket lure box and the LRF outfit was all I took apart from a landing net and mat clipped onto and empty rucksack (just in case).

With only really an hour to spare I headed straight back to my local stretch of the canal. I had a quick wonder to see if I could site any fish and saw a bait ball of fry near the surface by Ash Vale Station but no predators seem to be disturbing them. I flicked a small jig head into the centre of them and let it sink a little before reeling in. I did this 3 or 4 times to try and disperse them a little and create some mayhem that might attract predators into the swim. I then walked about 10 meters away from them and started to give thought to lure choice.

The obvious choice was the same lure I had caught on last as it resembled the fry pretty well but I wanted to get the lure down deeper to see if there were any bigger fish there so opted for a paddletail on a jig head. I have this method a good half hour and changed the soft plastic a few times to give profile and colours a chance and didn’t even see any follows. I couldn’t resist the little plug for too long so tied it on and cast.

I tried a number of retrieves and found that I only got follows from fish when really ripping the Lure through the water. When retrieves slowly the lure sure sinks, when retrieves at a medium pace it comes to the surface but when it is ripped at a fast retrieve it dives and stays at about 20cm below the surface and really wobbles from side to side. I started concentrating on this faster retrieve and it wasn’t long before I hooked up another very small perch.

What’s great about using a 0.5-7g rod and 4lb mainline is that even these toddlers give a good account of themselves and make for very fun fishing but in truth it is no real ‘fight as such and apart from the tip section there is no real bend in the rod.

With the blank well and truly saved I was happy to experiment some more and tried a couple other lures for the next half hour with very little to talk about except some of the muppets who also fish the canal with little consideration for others.

I won’t go into detail but please remember that there is a lot of water, a lot of towpath and no reason whatsoever to fish right on top of other anglers. 😀.

It was pretty much time to go home but I wanted that one last fish so clipped the plug back on and started ripping it through a shallow patch of water right by my feet and some vegetation and just as expected I got nailed within a few casts. The perfect ending before heading home?

I tried to get my phone out to take a photo but the fish managed to in unhook itself above the water just as I took the shot leaving me with this nice pic of nothing but a swirl haha.

If you want to find out more about catching UK fish on lures, I strongly recommend you try this great book here which provides info on everything you might want to know about lure fishing in the UK and how to catch a huge variety of species