How to catch big perch with record holder Ken Brown

ANGLER’S MAIL magazine carried a special report and picture of Ken Brown’s British record-breaking perch, all 6 lb 4 oz of it!

Ken, who won our £3,000  Specimen Cup at the start of 2011, has been seen in the magazine many times.

To celebrate his capture of an historic fish, we have extracts from his feature seen in the mag earlier this year.

Here’s perch fishing at Tring, the Ken Brown way…

Ken Brown told how he fishes in the Mail earlier this year – stick with the magazine for the best tactics and advice, FIRST!

KEN BROWN has fished Tring reservoirs off and on since he was at school, starting there at the age of 13, when he lived within walking distance and would spend his spare time fishing for a variety of species.

Last season, resulting in his Fox Specimen Cup victory, was his best at the venue. He starred in our pages with perch of 5 lb 10 oz and 4 lb 14 oz, and others of 5 lb 14 oz and 4 lb 14 oz, a brace of bream weighing 17 lb 8 oz and 15 lb, along with 20 double-figure bream, and a roach/bream hybrid of 8 lb 15 oz.

It’s hard going however, with his lobworm or maggot tactics only getting the occasional fish.

‘Normally I’m fishing for one big fish, and I regularly go for a month of fishing a couple of times a week without a bite,’ admitted Ken.

WARNING: please take extreme care is using a syringe to inject lobworms, as shown here by Ken Brown. Younger anglers should get adult permission before even attempting this.

One of his tricks is to inject air into the end of the worm furthest from the hook with just enough air to make it pop-up off the bottom, so it stands out and sways about with any water movement.

He sometimes offers a whole lobworm with the end nipped off plus a piece of a more lively dendrobaena worm.

Ken fishes either two rods with maggots and keeps re-casting them every half an hour, to put a bed of bait out, or he fishes worms on four rods and sits it out with little re-casting.

When the waterbirds allow, Ken likes to put out a bed of maggots using a Spomb, which will feed about a quarter of a pint at a time.

Or he’ll use a PVA stocking to make tangerine-sized ‘tea bags’ of maggots that can be fired out with a catapult, and if more weight is needed Ken adds a small stone. This keeps a fresh carpet of maggots in the area of his hook baits without the disturbance of re-casting.

For the main part of the year, Ken fishes at the front edge of the first big bed of weed, which grow in lines with channels in between that are patrolled by fish. Fishing this side of the weed means that he doesn’t risk losing a big fish.