Perchin' off Huron.

[FredT]

Three of us (daughter went this time) went out of the Huron river on Sunday and headed east over to Old Woman Creek. Bait store said they were hitting well over there in 20 fow the day before. Lake was real calm and made for a nice mid morning. No action at all there. Went over to the Cranberry Creek fishing fleet, action very slow there also. Went out to deeper water, around 38' and things picked up a bit, still slow, lake still calm. Came back in around 3:30 with only 31 perch, lake kicked up quite a bit at that time. Question: do you guys feel the bite is stronger from 6am to 10am or does it not matter? I find that from 11am to 2pm is a very slow time. Any comments?

[FredT]

Two of us went out of Huron yesterday, Sunday. Got out at 0730 just north and east of the river in 32 fow. This is somewhat close to shore as far as perchin' goes. We had our 60 keepers by noon and went in to drop them off at Fred's cleaning service on the river. We decided since it was early to go back out and see if we could find some unlucky walleyes. On our way out we saw hundres of gulls dipping at the surface, screeching and raising H. This was toward Cedar Point, more off of Sawmill. We figured the white bass had pushed the bait fish to the surface. We were correct and tore into them for two hours. The WB were splashing the surface near the gulls and would move on, so we would gun and run to keep up with them. My buddy got a big fat one that we measured, it was 17 inches. All of them were between 14 and 17 inches, not a small one in the lot. They would hit anything that looked like a 3 inch minnow. We caught and released all of them, over 60 total. Went back in, the perch cleaning was done when we went by Fred's and home we went.

[wmyer]

Went out Saturday from Huron. Rough ride out. Went about 13 miles to the dumping grounds. Slow start. Caught about 60 fish in the first 4 hours. Captain decided to move away from the pack. Went North a mile or so out of the pack in 42 fow. Caught the rest of our fish (90) in an hour and a half. Lots of doubles. Everything right on the bottom. There were 4 of us plus the captain. Pretty fun day after the move. We didn't keep anything under 7/12" and after the move caught quite a few in the 10-12" range.

Doug

[FredT]

You were out Saturday in that mess? I tried to motor around for awhile and came back in. Then again I only have a 17' Whaler. That dumping ground sure can produce.

[wmyer]

It was a charter. 30' boat. Still a rough ride out. Quite a few boats out there. Several bass boats we thought were crazy. The key seemed to be moving away from the other boats.


Doug

[FredT]

Any reason why moving away from the pack is key? My thoughts were closer together starts a feeding frenzy. If they are under the boat and want to feed, they will do just that. I am trying to learn more and pick up tips as I go. What did your Captain say?

[wmyer]

He felt like all the boat traffic, noise etc. might have turned the fish off. We were catching pretty good early until the boat traffic picked up. Lots of boats trolling right by us for walleye. The captain actually yelled at a couple of boats that got really close to our anchor line. He just thought they got spooked. Once we moved the closest boat was probably half a mile away. We couldn't get the poles in the water fast enough after that.

Doug