Lake Challenge 2020 – Perch Pro

After successful Zander Cup I was really waiting for the last event – Perch Pro. The expectations were big because I was on the first place and my boat partner – Marcin – was second but nothing hadn’t been decided yet. There was many anglers with very close results. How did it went?

The most difficult part was to decide about the tactic. I had a full card but with medium size fish. Marcin had nice fish but he still needed one pike. Additionally the fishing had been very slow for weeks at Grafham, especially for zander. Unfortunately perch also stopped feeding before the event. Pike on the other hand is always a lottery at Grafham. We decided to have different strategies for the event – I wanted to improve my 5 perch and compete in Perch Pro at the same time, Marcin decided to go for a missing pike with a heavy gear.

After the start we went the same direction as most of the boats but we quickly realized that the best spots will be overcrowded and it can affect the fishing. So we made a quick decision to change the direction and go to less popular places. The first one was completely empty. The second one was full of active fish but we couldn’t catch anything for some reason. We saw some fish caught around but we were doing smth wrong. Another bold decision and we agreed to move again.

When we arrived there was a boat exactly at our target spot so we moved away and started drifting. This time I started to catch perch immediately and very quickly I got a full card. A few more drifts and upgrades and perch disappeared. When I was thinking about going to comletely new location I caught a nice 66 cm zander on a perch gear. Marcin started to doubt in his strategy already but suddenly he got a very strong strike also. So we decided to make exactly the same drift again and a few minutes later we hooked two fish at the same time. Marcin landed his pike very quickly (71 cm) but it took me a little bit more time because of the light gear. Mine was 77 cm and gave me a nice upgrade.

I switched to a heavy set with big lures and we started to seek for big upgrades. Almost at the end of the competition Marcin hooked a very nice fish which occurred to be a decent zander of 81 cm. Huge upgrade for him.

It was close but I managed to stay at the first place and Marcin came as the second. That was a huge result for us and we were extremally happy , although I think I saw a little bit of disappointment on Marcin’s face 😉

Additionally my top 5 perch gave me also the first place in Perch Pro event which proved that fishing was very slow at the time. Only 15 anglers caught any perch during that day.

Perch Pro:

Lake Challenge 2020: