I Know Big Perch Live Here So I'll Stay Until Dusk!

That’s when the lake comes alive and stripeys feed.

- Martin Bowler

A BIG perch can turn up absolutely anywhere – from a farm pond to a canal – but if you had to pick a modern fishery in which to target the species, a commercial would likely be top of your list.

Perch thrive on neglect, and if a shoal of stripeys can hide among a battery of feeders and pole rigs you can see how they might grow to huge proportions.

That said, perch are now the fashionable winter species, especially since drop shotting became so popular. News on the grapevine needs to be followed up fast, so within days of hearing about the head of fish at Warmwell Fisheries, I was on my way to Dorset. Hopefully this early bird would catch the worm, or at least offer it to a big perch!

I have fished many commercials venues in the past, but none with the history of Warmwell. It was home to the legendary common Herman, and the fish that held the women’s British carp record.

I was to meet up with the fishery’s assistant manager Owen Sayles, who would show me around the stream-fed lakes.

They lie within a Parkdean holiday resort complete with chalets, but nature was never far away, with amazingly tame deer wandering freely and kingfishers working the margins.

It was the middle lake in a chain of three, Kingfisher, that drew my attention. Copious numbers of 2lb and 3lb fish, with 13 over 4lb and two over 5lb revealed during a recent netting, had me positively drooling.

That’s a huge stock in such a small water and, better still, while I wasn’t the first perch angler to cotton on to its potential, it had seen little pressure.