Walleye and Perch Help, please Walleye and Perch Help, please Walleye and Perch Help, please Walleye and Perch Help, please
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  1. #21
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
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    Fostoria, Ohio
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    You have to be realistic in your approach to shiners! If there is a full moon then you may not get lake (Emerald)shiners period! They are not easily caught when the moon is full. I have had excellent luck with both fatheads and golden shiners when Emerald are in short supply.

    Ask yourself this question, Do I want to run around from bait store to bait store looking for Emeralds when there is a full moon? Even if you called ahead and found out they had some those emeralds may already be gone by the time you get there. Been there done that. So is it goldens, fatheads or mix of lake shiners and goldens or fatheads or off to another bait store that said they had some emeralds when you made your call. Myself I would rather be fishing and not wasting time driving from bait shop to bait shop hoping for emeralds. I have been at this since 1955 and can tell you that in order to catch perch you have to be actively fishing and not chasing down lake shiners in your car for an hour or so.

    Just last weekend I stopped at my favorite local bait store and they had no shiners so I bought 2 scoops of golden shiners and a 1 scoop of fatheads. I ended up with 27 nice perch that weighed 12 pounds at the cleaners. At the end it was to hot for me and the bite had died to non existent so I called it a day, had I ran around chasing emeralds I would have not caught the 27 that I did but would have still been hot and had a non existent perch bite when I decided to call it and come in.

    I don't think there is an experienced fisherman who frequents this forum who does not believe that the Lake Erie shiner(Emeralds) are the best perch bait for Erie because they are. They would also tell you that during certain periods they are hard to come by for one reason or another. You have to flexible and adapt when things are not as expected.

    A little secret to using fatheads is to smash their heads to release some scent and the goldens I smash their stomach until you can see some juice flowing out.

    90% of the perch that I catch are what we say in the mud. I use 2 rods whenever possible. Lines to the bottom with an inch or 2 of slack and then either lift every 10 seconds or so or dead stick and watch your rod tip. I catch at least half my perch on a dead stick with a slight amount of slack in the line. I just want the rod to show some weight as the boat rocks and not lift that sinker off the bottom. The next thing is the use of braided line of some kind as it will allow you to feel every little thing that is happening down below and will show you on the dead stick what is happening there.
    Last edited by wakina; 07-31-2016 at 04:49 PM.
    Wakina
    23 foot Pro Line
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    HDS 5M GPS
    Navonics chip, model #DMSD/649P+
    Platinum Plus Lake Erie and Lake St Clair Marine.
    Raymarine Dragonfly7 Sonar-Downvision-GPS combo with chirp technology.
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  2. #22
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
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    Mark,
    thanks for all of the great advice. I will try to call ahead and find emerald shiners if possible. If I catch some white perch while walleye fishing, and I probably will, then I may keep them and try the belly meat trick. I like the idea of waiting to set the hook to try and hook a double. That makes a lot of sense. You've been very helpful, Mark.
    Phil

  3. #23
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
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    Wakina,
    I agree with you, I won't waste what could be hours trying to find emerald shiners, especially if they are not available. I did some google searches on emerald shiners and Lake Erie, and I saw the articles about shortages of emerald shiners in years past, so it sounds like the same thing is happening again this year. I will call a bunch of the bait shops that others have mentioned and see if they have emerald shiners. I use nanofil on my spinning rods and baitcasting rods, so I am all set there. I have a fluorocarbon leader on each rod, so the perch should not be able to see my line. Thanks again for the great advice, especially on the emerald shiners. I am driving over 600 miles from Omaha, NE to attend my family reunion and go fishing, so I don't want to be chasing emerald shiners all over the place and waste time that I could be out on the water.
    Phil

  4. #24
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Fostoria, Ohio
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    Quote Originally Posted by shuclan View Post
    Wakina,
    I agree with you, I won't waste what could be hours trying to find emerald shiners, especially if they are not available. I did some google searches on emerald shiners and Lake Erie, and I saw the articles about shortages of emerald shiners in years past, so it sounds like the same thing is happening again this year. I will call a bunch of the bait shops that others have mentioned and see if they have emerald shiners. I use nanofil on my spinning rods and baitcasting rods, so I am all set there. I have a fluorocarbon leader on each rod, so the perch should not be able to see my line. Thanks again for the great advice, especially on the emerald shiners. I am driving over 600 miles from Omaha, NE to attend my family reunion and go fishing, so I don't want to be chasing emerald shiners all over the place and waste time that I could be out on the water.
    Phil
    We just had a full moon so unless there is another reason for the recent shortage of shiners(emeralds) there should be plenty available while you are here. The full moon makes catching them very hard unless there are cloudy skies, the bright moon makes the lake light enough that the net boats cannot get them to school in the numbers needed to supply the bait stores, it makes their lights ineffective. They may and that is a big may only net 2 or 3 gallons instead of the 15 to 20 or more gallons needed to supply the area bait stores.

    StClair's baits behind Wild Wings gas station and A'n'J Baits have their own minnow netting operations and they supply themselves first and the other local stores get what is left. So you might want to start there in your search!

    I don't think perch are line shy and I believe leaders are not a necessity.
    Wakina
    23 foot Pro Line
    HDS 5X Sonar
    HDS 5M GPS
    Navonics chip, model #DMSD/649P+
    Platinum Plus Lake Erie and Lake St Clair Marine.
    Raymarine Dragonfly7 Sonar-Downvision-GPS combo with chirp technology.
    Navonics Hotmaps Premium East chip

  5. #25
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    Jun 2010
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    To everyone who offered help for our trip to Erie last week, I would like to say a big thank you to all of you. My son and I managed to get out on Sunday for a little over an hour before having to return for our reunion, and we caught some perch by Kelley's, where a long line of boats had formed. We took my Brother and his son out on Tuesday, and after picking up some shiners at Jeannette's, and getting some advice about fishing around Green Island and Rattlesnake, we made our way out to Green Island, and fished just west of the island a couple of hundred yards away, along with a bunch of other boats. We motored around a bit, found a big school of perch, anchored, and did not have to move. We stopped just short of a 4 man limit, just to be on the safe side, and we tried some walleye trolling for a bit, with no luck. Our fish weighed 31 pounds at the cleaners. I am grateful to all of you for offering help/advice, and it's nice to see that the community at Walleye.com has not changed one bit over the years. Thanks again to all, and I hope to see some of you in the springtime for the jig bite.
    Phil

  6. #26
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Location
    Toledo
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    Default Great!

    Quote Originally Posted by shuclan View Post
    To everyone who offered help for our trip to Erie last week, I would like to say a big thank you to all of you. My son and I managed to get out on Sunday for a little over an hour before having to return for our reunion, and we caught some perch by Kelley's, where a long line of boats had formed. We took my Brother and his son out on Tuesday, and after picking up some shiners at Jeannette's, and getting some advice about fishing around Green Island and Rattlesnake, we made our way out to Green Island, and fished just west of the island a couple of hundred yards away, along with a bunch of other boats. We motored around a bit, found a big school of perch, anchored, and did not have to move. We stopped just short of a 4 man limit, just to be on the safe side, and we tried some walleye trolling for a bit, with no luck. Our fish weighed 31 pounds at the cleaners. I am grateful to all of you for offering help/advice, and it's nice to see that the community at Walleye.com has not changed one bit over the years. Thanks again to all, and I hope to see some of you in the springtime for the jig bite.
    Phil
    Glad things worked well. Did you try using spreaders and Crappie rigs too? Were they pretty much equal in results? Did you feel a hit and leave the rig down to see if you could entice another bite?
    Good eaten'.

  7. #27
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark View Post
    Glad things worked well. Did you try using spreaders and Crappie rigs too? Were they pretty much equal in results? Did you feel a hit and leave the rig down to see if you could entice another bite?
    Good eaten'.
    Mark,
    We just used spreaders. My brother and his son tried spreaders with some bling (blades), but the perch seemed to just want a plain spreader. The bite was really consistent, and even if you missed a bite, you could still catch a fish on the remaining minnow without putting on another minnow to fill out the spread. There must have been some really good perch hatches over the years, as it seemed no matter where you fished, there were lots of perch around. Erie is an amazing fishery, to say the least.
    Phil

  8. #28
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
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    Toledo
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    Quote Originally Posted by shuclan View Post
    Mark,
    We just used spreaders. My brother and his son tried spreaders with some bling (blades), but the perch seemed to just want a plain spreader. The bite was really consistent, and even if you missed a bite, you could still catch a fish on the remaining minnow without putting on another minnow to fill out the spread. There must have been some really good perch hatches over the years, as it seemed no matter where you fished, there were lots of perch around. Erie is an amazing fishery, to say the least.
    Phil
    Good! Now you know what to do, where to do it and available options. Best news is that if things go as usual with the weather conditions and other factors, you might want to consider trying it again later on in September and October because that's when larger Yellows move in! And if you do end up with an abundance of fillets just ask the questions here on how to freeze them and you'll get a lot of ideas.


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