Thread: Rudd, perch and cat fish in the Auckland waikato area

Please excuse a sentimental perch story or three, to pass the time (night off you see).

So NZ perch are a European species obviously, one that I grew up targeting from the age of around four through my teens. I could walk out of our place where I grew up in Sussex, with a short rod and simple reel and some homegrown worms, and be 90% sure I‘d catch a perch. As I got older I grew tired of the tiddlers and decided to target the big boys (probably girls actually). And I got pretty damn good at it.

One word: livebait.

We would go to the shallow riffles upstream, with small handheld nets & a bucket, and catch stone loach and bullheads. These would be suspended on a small treble hook under a reasonably stout float, with one swanshot weight to keep the livebait down if it was feeling a bit poorly.

If there was a large perch in the swim that I was fishing, the average time from cast to strike was about 30 seconds. The large redfin perch is a voracious feeder and if it’s there, it will eat.

When the fish struck it was imperative to get it into the centre of the channel as quickly as possible, because if they got into the reeds you were done for. These were narrow and relatively shallow little rivers, sometimes not much more than 10 or 12 feet across and maybe 4 feet deep, though the deeper pools tended to be just enough for us young ‘uns to be able to build a rope swing in the summer.

We would use light tackle because that’s really all we knew, and the sport was fantastic. Losing a good fish was almost as bad as losing the FA Cup final to Man Utd. It really hurt.

I remember one day way back when, my dad had given me a strict time that I needed to be home for some reason or other. Which I completely ignored of course. He came looking for me with steam blowing out of his ears, there he was roaring over to grab me by the scruff of the neck. At that very moment my livebait was hit by a properly big perch, Dad saw the rod bend and I did my best and caught a really good fish. Situation defused...

One time around ‘82 I guess, I ran out of live bait and decided to use a Wrigleys gum wrapper as a lure. It was summer and the water was crystal clear. I watched the paper on the hook, willing it to stay on as I slowly retrieved it, suddenly it was snatched out of sight and my rod took a massive hit. Ten minutes later I landed a reasonable sized pike, which to this day is one of my favourite fishing memories. What the pike was doing in such a small river I will never know. But I caught it. In front of my mates. Legend.

Sadly there is a sting in the tail to this story. Last July I took my family back to England to see the folks and where I grew up, first time I had been back for 14 years. The day we arrived, completely jetlagged and freaked out, it felt like a good excuse to go for a walk down to the river and show my boys where I played for many years at their age. I was truly gutted to discover that the area had been largely developed on the other side of the river - where before there was nothing but farmland and woods - the river was silted up and hardly flowing - stagnant almost in places. I took my two boys to some of my favourite fishing holes... dead as. Full of crap and weed and no life in sight.

Over the years there is an expression that I have come to trust: never go back, you’ll be disappointed.

If you break your own rules, you should know what to expect. I was gutted. Oh well.