Region 48 PAC Event At Toft Newton...
Seeing the weather forecast the night before and the mention of 20mph, I was sceptical about bobbing around in a small wooden boat in the middle of a featureless concrete bowl. Not one for letting the weather put me off I arrived at Toft around 8am and it wasn't as bad as what the weather girl had made out it would be. With a raised wall surrounding the reservoir, one area was sheltered nicely from the wind.At the previous PAC meeting several of the lads had been talking about drop shotting for the perch, a technique which i was not too familiar with. After a bit of research and numerous You Tube video's later I had a basic understanding and ordered a few plastic worms, shads and special drop shot hooks. From initial impressions this seemed to be a very American style of fishing for mainly targeting bass.
I set off out in the boat just after 8:30am and headed over to the only real feature in the reservoir, a concrete pipe that runs out from a pumping station and the dog legs off to the left. Setting up relatively heavy to what had been suggested in the video's i used 12lb main line down to a 15lb fluorocarbon hook length with a 1oz lead on a 4lb break away at the bottom. The shads and lures i had chosen were specifically picked from what i could find out about the fishery. I had a series of 4' silver flash shads to replicate a roach fry (which there are in vast numbers). A rainbow trout shad to replicate the possible numbers of trout fry and finally a series of realistic Creme Earth worms replicating a natural food source. Initially setting up with 2 worms hooked different ways one bouncing on the bottom and the second suspended 1/2 meter off the bottom.
After twitching the worms for a good hour I had yet to receive a bite, whilst around me several other lads had caught a few small perch using nearly identical set ups to my own. I persisted and tried different ways of hooking up the worms to give them the most realist look. Hooking them through the head and feeding the worm 2cm onto the 1/0 hook before just exposing the point looked the best way. After 2 hours I felt the line tighten and I lifted into what felt a good fish. Seeing the fish emerge from around 15ft of water I could see the stripped marking and orange fins clearly as it broke the surface. With only 1cm of a 4' worm visible from it huge gaping mouth, it had truly nailed the lure. I continued to go through my usual procedure of resting the fish before weighing and photographing. This pristine 2lb 9oz perch was a new PB and had proved to me that drop shotting isn't just an American style of fishing after all.
Once returned i continued to twitch around the same area hoping the bigger fish had shoaled up tight after a drop in temperature a few nights before but this was to no success and this was my only take of the day...but i suppose you don't mind when its a PB.
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