Ultra Light Lure Fishing for Perch and Pike Pt2

My first Ultra Light Lure Fishing Trip to the Shropshire Union Canal produced a perch and a pike but it was hard work getting bites on that particular section so I moved on. The next weekend I decided to try the adjacent stretch and see if it was any better there. It was the weekend there was a yellow weather alert for heavy rain and it was already raining when I arrived at my new section of canal. The rain meant it was going to be a short session this time but it also meant not much canal boat traffic had been through the area.

Despite my session being short I had quite a few bites. I was using a 2” Relax Kopyto Shad worked close to the bottom of the wall of the canal. This particular lure is a brilliant big perch lure but the smaller fish have difficulty taking it and this tends to result in quick pulls of the rod tip as the micro perch have a go at the lure but miss the hook. I worked a short section of the canal from a bridge and along the margins until I came to some moored boats and during that time I must have had 10 bites. One of them was definitely a pike as I managed to play the fish to the surface where it thrashed around for a few seconds before throwing the hook. The rest of the bites were micro perch but it proved there were fish in the area so I resolved to return to this stretch with a smaller 1” kopyto shad to see if I could catch a few of the micro perch and get an idea of just how small these fish were. You can check out the video of this quick trip below.

Click to Watch last weeks Shropshire Union Canal lure fishing session

Fast forward a week and I was back at the same section of the Shropshire Union Canal I’d lost that small pike at. Unfortunately I arrived just as a second canal boat was about to pass through the section. These boats really cloud up the water and they have a negative effect on your lure fishing when they pass through. Needless to say my first fish through this short section resulted in nothing. I had a bit of a break and a chat with an old chap who’d been out filming an event with his Sony Handycam, I spent about 20 minutes chatting to him before I got back to the fishing. I was going to move on but I decided to do the section again because no more boats had come through.

I started again just before the bridge and before I’d got underneath it the rod tip pulled down indicating a bite. I bent into the fish and sure enough my Ultralite Lure Rod doubled over. I was hoping for a big perch but when the fish eventually surfaced I quickly identified it as a small pike. Fortunately this pike didn’t manage to throw the hook like last weekend’s fish and eventually I chinned out a small jack. It wasn’t the fish I wanted but it was welcome none the less. We’d already seen snow overnight and there was a bitterly cold wind blowing and to be honest I was pleased to catch anything in these conditions. I was grateful to be wearing my Buffalo Special 6 Shirt in that cold wind too. I continued working the stretch but I had no more bites, the micro perch that were there last week had moved on and it was time for me to do the same.
Ultra light lure caught Shropshire Union Canal Pike

My next stop was the next bridge along and I found a place to park and started at the bridge again. I worked the bridge meticulously but I couldn’t buy a bite even with a small 1” lure. Eventually I decided to just try moving along the towpath where there were no apparent features. It was here I finally picked up a micro perch, all 3” of it, the fish wasn’t far off the size of my lure it was so small but at least it was the target species. I carried on working the open stretch of canal but no more bites were forthcoming so I called it a day with one jack pike and one micro perch to my name, not exactly what I was looking for but then again the Shropshire Union Canal is quite a difficult lure water up here at the northern end.

Click to watch Pt2 of my Ultra Light Lure Fishing Adventures

I’ve made a video of the second trip including the capture of my jack pike this week and you can watch the full capture above. I’ll be back on the Shropshire Union Canal again next weekend, it might not be the easiest of canals to fish but I intend to keep searching different sections of the canal until I get lucky and bag myself a decent perch.
Until next time, tight lines and be lucky yourself.
Mark.