New Perch Lure Testing results in a nice Stripey and an opportunistic Pike

   I received my new Perch lures yesterday and couldn't wait to get on the water and try them out. The lures in question were the Quantum Joker and Fiiish Black Minnow 70 seen below. They each appealed to me for different reasons, the Quantum Joker was a very new concept of lure to me with a new technique of fishing to me and i was interested to try it out. The Fiiish Black Minnow has always worked for me in my Bass fishing so when the Fiiish guys brought out some fluorescent colours in a 70mm size i just had to have them for my Perch fishing.

   I started off fishing the Quantum Joker, in various colours, chucking it to the edge of far bank barges on the canal i had chosen to fish. The great thing about this lure is that when it hits the water, it planes away from you until it reaches the bottom so this meant my lure was falling right underneath the barge.
   I gave the lure some water time but was unsure which technique to retrieve it with; slow lifts and falls, fast lifts and slow falls or a couple of jigs and then fall so this made my confidence in the lure diminish a little and i believe confidence is key to success in lure fishing. I will however continue to give the Quantum Joker a good go in hopes of some success on a certain retrieve.
   After this i moved down the canal a 100 yards or so to another place i'd caught Perch before. I clipped on the Fiiish Black Minnow 70 in Fluoro Green with a 3g Fiiish Head. I started to retrieve the lure with the technique i know best of hopping the lure back with short twitches and withing a couple of casts i had a slam on the rod, missed it. I thought that would be my only chance but a few more casts and irregular rod taps that all anglers wait for suddenly started on the tip. I stopped retrieving and just held the rod up to feel for the bite, BANG!! i set the hook and after a short fight i landed a lovely Perch just shy of 2lb.

   I decided to head back to the first spot i tried to give it a go with the Fiiish Black Minnow but no takers. Whilst i was fishing though i kept seeing fry fly from the water and large splashes and boils on the surface of the water. My first thought was Perch, so i continued to fish with my array of soft plastics and jigheads chopping and changing every few casts or so to see if i could tempt whatever was making these fry jump. I had nothing on the jigs so after another large boil on the surface i thought to myself  'this fish is obviously actively hunting near the surface and i'm using soft plastics on the bottom, time for a change' i rifled through my Perch box which contains a select few hard lures. I decided to clip on the Megabass X80 Trick Darter in a silver pattern. Second cast in the rings of a another surface commotion and the lure smashed! a short fight later and the culprit was little 4lb Pike.

    All in all a very nice morning on the water, No success with the Quantum Joker but the Fiiish Black Minnow 70 fast becoming a favourate and a nice opportunistic Pike.

Thanks for Reading, Sam

New Perch Lures

Made a few recent purchases of New Perch lures to try out on the waters i fish. I have read about and researched a few possibilities but most of the lures i found matched the lures i already own so something different was needed.

- Fiiish Black Minnow 70 3g Jighead

  The first lures i got were from the innovative Fiiish company and specifically there Black Minnow 70 lure took my fancy. I have used the larger versions of this lure with great success for Bass, Wrasse and Pollack so i am in no doubt they will be effective in fresh water also. I decided to get a few colours of the lure, one natural and two in brighter colours to stand out in the murky water i fish.

I have chosen to use the 3g Fiiish jigheads and the compatible krog hooks which combine to make the lure weedless. The light weight Jighead will enable me to fish the lure with slow lifts and drops which can prove deadly for perch. The Fiiish Black Minnow has a paddle tail so it works whenever the lure is in motion but also the flexible body and the way the hook connection is designed means that, even when stationary, the tail has the ability to wave around and attract fish.

- Quantum Joker 8.5cm 5g

The Quantum Joker is a new lure to me which i have recently read great things about. It is not your conventional soft plastic lure used for perch as it has no jighead for use with the sink and draw or hopping methods. In contrast the Quantum Joker is rigged what looks like backwards but this is all to aid in the action and technique of fishing this lure. The Quantum Joker has a large beaver-like tail and isn't like anything i've used before.

As you can see the colours of these lures are mainly bright with light greens, yellow, reds and oranges which are all great colours for perch, especially in coloured water. 

  Now on to the technique. The technique to fish with these lures is illustrated below and it looks like a conventional sink and draw but the way this lure is rigged means that after the lure has been lifted, instead of falling vertical down or hopped forward, it will actually fall slightly backwards on the fall. 

  As i've mentioned, the Quantum Joker has a different action to most conventional soft plastics that are fished with jigheads and some say this can provoke attacks from wary fish that might otherwise leave a jigged lure alone.

Can't wait to get out fishing and try these lures out!

Thanks for Reading, Sam Johnson

PB Lure Caught Perch 2lb 3oz, Daiwa D-Fin 4" Chartreuse Rigged Weedless

  Got up at around 6am to do a bit of Perch fishing with lures on my local canal. Got to the water as the sun was rising so the low light conditions were perfect. However during this period of low light i didn't manage to catch a fish!

  Later on in the morning, around 9am, the day had become overcast so conditions gave me confidence of a fish or two. I had been using a new soft lure i had purchased the week before, a Daiwa D-Fin 4" in Chartreuse colour. As we know canals are littered with snags on the bottom so i decided to rig the lure weedless on a 6g Jighead and slow hop it back from the far bank. I started fan casting from right to left at a spot i'd previously had success at. I had no success in the open water in front of me which usually produces a fish or but to my left, on the towpath side, was a barge which isn't usually moored there so thought id have a chuck down the side of this in hope that a perch is lying in wait under or around this added feature.

Daiwa D-Fin Chartreuse & Decoy Violence weedless Jighead

  An underarm chuck down the far side of the barge was left to settle on the bottom for a second or two before i started the slow, twitching retrieve back towards my feet. After a few seconds of retrieve the lure was nearing the end of the barge when it got slammed! My light spinning rod bent over and i knew it was a nice fish. After a short battle the fish came to the surface and i slid the net underneath it, i knew it was good fish.

  After weighing the fish it tipped the scales at 2lb 3oz, a new PB for me, safe to say it was worth the early alarm clock!

Thanks for Reading, Sam Johnson