{"id":4296,"date":"2021-01-26T12:08:17","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T12:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/?p=4296"},"modified":"2021-01-26T19:59:43","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T19:59:43","slug":"the-quest-for-a-snow-perch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/?p=4296","title":{"rendered":"The Quest For A Snow Perch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Yesterday I set myself a mission to catch myself a \u2018snow perch\u2019. Not sure why I felt so compelled, but it got me out of the house for a bit. I only had an hour. Half of that was probably spent walking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was itching to try a swim that I\u2019d walked past many times and that was my furthest destination. It had half a lid of ice on it and looked fishy, but perhaps a bit too coloured? No bites there. Not even a sniff!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disappointedly, I traipsed back to my starting point, hoping to try a little bridge hole that I felt was my banker spot. Sod\u2019s law a boat had just decided to move 100 metres and moor up right next to my fishy looking spot. It\u2019s engine on full revs had transformed the swim into a sewer-like broth. Combined with some industrial-strength scaffold post banging I sadly had to give the spot a miss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything seemed to be conspiring against me, the clock was ticking and what initially seemed like a simple quest was now turning into mission impossible. The bridge hole was supposed to be my very last swim before heading home, but I was determined to catch\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I eventually found a clear swim well above the churned-up cauldron and started again. I had a very short window before I needed to be home. This really was to be my last throw of the dice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting desperate I’d scaled down to a mini dropshot setup and 2in micro lure. Literally any fish would now do. First cast and I found a long sunken branch exactly where I felt the fish were hiding. It took a bit of persuading but I managed to pull it out of the way. Thankfully no breakages, so a quick inspection of the hook’s sharpness and I was back fishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grim reality of a blank was starting to set in as I made several \u2018one last casts\u2019. With the sun dropping behind the trees the winter chill was really biting my fingers. Please, just one more cast. I hate blanking!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, from out of nowhere, a take! This had to be a perch. Definitely not a giant, but a very welcome striped assassin gave a great account of itself on my ultralight setup. As it thrashed angrily on the surface I hoisted it out. I\u2019d finally caught my elusive snow perch!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the flood water and snow I never anticipated the task would be so difficult, but I returned home smiling and triumphant. A short January skirmish in the snow. Who would have thought catching one little perch would be so satisfying?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I set myself a mission to catch myself a \u2018snow perch\u2019. Not sure why I felt so compelled, but it got me out of the house for a bit. I only had an...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,15,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-canal","category-lure-fishing","category-perch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4296"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4304,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296\/revisions\/4304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonarthur.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}