Fishing for Perch on northumbrian waters larger venues??

[fester]

Has anyone ever tried to target perch at any of Northumbrian waters large reservoirs like Fontburn, kielders or Derwent? These are day ticket, stocked any method trout fisheries.
I'm thinking perch thrive on being left alone but would they do as well in a water were theres so much competion for food?

 

[sam vimes]

Fester,
I've not fished any of them myself, and I've not seen any of them discussed on here. I have a few acquaintances that fish (or have fished) for roach on Fontburn and Derwent. However, it's Whittle Dene that sees more chatter than either. I've not heard much directly about especially big perch on any of them, but google does suggest that there's perch to decent sizes in all three.

 

[fester]

Thanks Sam. To my mind they has to be a good head of Perch as all the waters mentioned are essentially part of the river system, fed by multiple streams. I am curious to what the presence of so many stocked rainbows will have though.

 

[sam vimes]

They are all connected to their respective rivers. However, you probably won't find any perch in the rivers that high up the dale. One thing that the trout will do is add predatory competition and impact on the number of perch fry that reach maturity. If the similar upland stillwaters I'm more familiar with are anything to go by, there may be a lot less perch than you might imagine.

 

[Phil Heaton]

I've no experience of the waters you mention, but Chew, Rutland and Grafham are all stocked trout reservoirs but carry a good head of very good perch. There are a few lesser known stocked trout reservoirs I fish for predators and they too have a healthy perch stock, so I would definitely give them a good try.

 

[fester]

Cheers Phil that's encouraging. I phoned Fontburn who say there's no Perch but the nice lass at Derwent said that fish do show to over 2lb

 

[Phil Heaton]

Don't let them put you off, there's got to be perch the buggers get everywhere.
There's a similar reservoir close to me that's all methods and when asked about pike fishing the bailiff told me there had been 1 but it was caught and killed.... lol

 

[Philip]

I have not fished those waters but it would not surprise me if its the sort of place that could throw up a real monster out of the blue.

Could be a soul destoying to track it down however.