The 2024-2025 season has been an incredible one for big perch, with numerous 4lb fish banked and a string of 5lb monsters caught from various venues. It is certainly one for the record books. Although many of these fish were landed from trout reservoirs like Grafham, Lee Spillard has proven that other venues also hold massive fish for those willing to seek them out. While fishing a large northern water, he and his brother Gary had a session to remember when Lee landed the perch of a lifetime—an incredible 5lb 7oz fish.
"I arrived at the water with my brother, Gary Spillard, at dawn, hoping to replicate a session we had the week before, where we landed several perch over 4lb—it was an amazing day," Lee told us.
"Unfortunately, the perch didn’t get the memo, and after a couple of hours on the water, we had only managed a few missed takes and two tiny pike to show for our efforts," he added.
Beginning to lose hope, Lee received a phone call from his partner, asking what time he would likely be home. As is often the way in fishing, as soon as you go to do something else you get a bite. Sure enough, as Lee went to answer, he left the rod static for a moment, and at that instant, it thumped over as a good fish inhaled his lure.
"As soon as I set the hooks, the reel started to sing. Right away, we both called 'pike' due to the power of that initial run," he said.
"After a crazy fight, she started to tire. Gaz was on hand with the net, both of us expecting a pike to surface at any moment."
"Then, I heard Gaz scream, ‘You’ve done it, bro!’ as he caught a glimpse of the fish in the clear water."
"Despite our excitement, he netted it expertly. As the perch lay safely contained in the net, he turned to me and said, ‘It’s a five-pounder.’ I couldn’t believe it and rushed over to see for myself," he recalled.
"At 5lb 7oz and 53cm long, it was monstrous—I’d never seen anything like it. This was the fish I had spent countless hours chasing, and finally seeing it in my net was surreal. Sharing the moment with my brother made it even more special."
"My tactics on the day was a 7g tungsten jig head with the soon-to-be-released Pigster Geko mounted at the sharp end."
"It was slowly hopped along the bottom, with the key being long pauses whenever I felt it bump into any hard structures or rocks."
THE BEST SPINNING REELS WILL HELP MAKE CASTING AND RETRIEVING LURES EFFORTLESS.
