Perch
Don't let it's size fool you: the perch is a full time predator from birth. With it's unmistakable striped camouflage and spiny dorsal fin, the perch has a voracious appetite to match it's large mouth.
It's mouth does not have teeth to grip it's prey, but it's jaws are plenty strong enough to grip and disable them. It will tackle any smaller fish that it can get a grip off and often goes around disabling potential meals by grabbing and damaging their tails first. Bigger meals are often swallowed tail first in the process.
This mini predator is extremely widespread and found in waters ranging from small ponds to huge reservoirs, making them just as interesting to tackle, and with a variety of methods, as any other larger predator.
It's keen eyesight is it's main asset and it is much more at home in clear water. It's powerful eyes give it a great advantage in low light and that's perhaps why dawn and dusk are good times to target them. It's rarely a hunter of the night and although not normally associated with influxes of coloured water, it does seem to adapt when coloured water is the norm as in some commercial fisheries.
A 2lb perch is a good size, but 3lb fish are more common in recent times. 4lb perch are rare but very catchable in some venues, the rivers Thames and Great Ouse being prime examples. Many anglers are tackling the deep reservoirs and natural waters from boats for them now with more recently introduced light lure fishing methods. Popular modern (to the UK) methods worth checking out are drop-shot, Texas rig, Carolina rig, cheb rig, nedd rig and Tokyo rig. They are very effective and fun to use. Having said all of this, many big perch are caught on a couple of red maggots under a waggler float!
The perch record currently stands at 6lb 3oz.
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