And Attacked The Flock (Catching A Perch)

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Fishing tales

When my old friend the huntsman Kuzmich invited me to go fishing on the Karelian Isthmus, I agreed without hesitation …

- Let's make circles of kilogram humpbacks, - he promised.

And so late in the evening we are sitting at a table in Kuzmich's house, packing mugs and other gear into our backpacks, getting ready for tomorrow's fishing trip.

Suddenly a dog barked in the yard, and a red-cheeked big man burst into the room. I knew him - this is a forester, and his name was Anton. Having greeted, the guest, without postponing business on the back burner, turned to the owner of the house:

- Alexey Kuzmich, tomorrow morning you should be at the distant cordon. The regional authorities come there for inspection.

“So much for fishing…” Kuzmich said looking at me.

- Where were you going to fish? - Anton asked.

“On the Black Lake,” said Kuzmich.

- There are nice oknuts there, - the forester reasoned and added: - Only the places of their parking must be found.

Once on the lake, I easily found Kuzmich's boat, loaded the gear into it and raked it out in the middle of the reservoir. The lake was quite small, but it was quite suitable for fishing in circles.

First, he let the circles go down the wind in a line at a distance of 8-10 meters from each other. The minutes of waiting dragged on slowly. However, the mugs sailed safely to the opposite bank, and there were no bites. I shifted a little to the left and started the mugs again. At first they quietly swayed on small ripples, but soon the outermost of them twitched and rolled over. I paused, approached him and hooked him. A moment later, a perch of three hundred grams was at the bottom of the boat. After a while, the second circle on the left worked, and another perch became my trophy.

Then I shifted even more to the left of about thirty meters, and again the circle turned over exactly in the place where the first perch was caught. This time a half-kilogram handsome man was caught, followed by two more. And on a small patch. Since I had no buoys, I remember this lucky place visually. From a large pine tree on the right bank, I mentally drew a straight line to a large boulder on the opposite bank. Along this line, with the help of a fishing line and a sinker from one of the circles, I determined the depth in several nearby places. There were mostly 2 to 2.5 meters. And a little ahead - already 6. There, apparently, there was a hole. Therefore, having adjusted the circles to this depth, I launched them with a very narrow front, literally one and a half meters from each other. Once they were wasted, then the second, the third. But I did not despair, I just put different depths on all circles. And it worked!

As soon as the mugs swam five meters away from me, one of them, just above the pit, turned over. I hooked and immediately felt the line going from side to side. He quickly began to select her, and pulled the perch out of the water. And what! One and a half kilogram, no less. Struck by his appearance. In contrast to the usual green perch with dark vertical stripes, this one was completely black. And the vertical stripes on his body were almost invisible.

Without delay, I sent a new circle to the same place and from the second call fished out almost the same humpback. The other mugs caught two more perch, a little smaller. Then the biting stopped for a while. However, I stubbornly hunted down the lucky spot, and my persistence was rewarded: I pulled out four more magnificent humpbacks.

As you know, perch is a schooling fish, and, probably, I got to its camp. But then either the flock moved to another place, or I caught all the perches in this place, but the biting stopped. True, after an hour and a half it resumed, but I came across such a perking trifle that I took off the mugs and finished fishing.