Perch Fishing

[wnyguy]

Saturday was the first day that I started popping bladders and it seemed to work. The first few small ones I was tossing right back in and they just floated on the surface, only briefly as the seagulls were just waiting for us to toss one out and they would grab it. I remember reading an article in in-fisherman about popping bass bladders when they stick out, they called it fizzing and claimed there was a study done saying the bass had a better chance of living. They did it with a needle, I just used my hook and I noticed the perch immediately swam back down deep. The trick is to pop the bladder not past the barb. Obvious I know.

I started off in that fleet of boats I think when I got out there, there were 2 other boats and when I moved after getting tired of small fish and lots of boats there were 43 boats close to us. I did see another fleet outside the cat, got about 1/2 mile? close to them when we moved and heard on the radio they were doing about the same, lots of small fish.

Just out of curiousity, is this normal to catch so many small ones like this? I'm still kind of new at this, only 2nd year of perch fishing on erie. I'm of the impression that if you are only catching small fish, move and try and locate a school with bigger fish. Or do some people just stay and wait out the smaller fish?

The funny thing is that a lot of those fish I threw back if I was ice fishing on chautaqua I would have kept most of them.

[lineman49]

I know the "small ones" would be big ones on other lakes. I think we get spoiled when getting the big Erie jacks that we get. We use to get 8 inchers on Silver lake years ago & say they were the big ones (silver lake specials we called them). Seneca Lake has big perch if anyone ever goes there,thats fun but I haven't done that in years.

[half pole]

Sometimes you gotta keep them small ones if you wanna fill your freezer. I'm happy with 8 inchers in western end. bigger ones are a bonus for us.

[captainjoe]

We did the same thing- popping the bladder with the tjp of the hook. It's good to see them go straight to the bottom. I was off the white wall (Evangola St. Park) probably 3 / 4 miles out. Funny thing i didn't even mark the spot on my fish finder. Fishkiller did you launch out of SP? It was shallow. Did you take the small boat or the big one?

[lineman49]

Fished out of SP this AM. Same thing, lots of small ones, only kept 25-30 over 10 ". big one was 13.5".

[wnyguy]

Did you try popping the bladder?

I'd be happy with 25-30 like that. What kind of ratio did you have throwbacks to keepers? When I went out I mean all of them were small the last time. I'm not whining just one of those days.

[wnyguy]

CaptainJoe I launched my 18ft IO out of sp without any problem, but the water did get a little shallow. In fact they have a sign up that says very low water caution. I talked with one of the guys who works there about the shallow water, possibility of a sand bar and his advice was to not get too close to those rocks, and when you get out head straight towards the city for a bit until it gets deeper. (not parallel to shore)

[wnyguy]

Sometimes you gotta keep them small ones if you wanna fill your freezer. I'm happy with 8 inchers in western end. bigger ones are a bonus for us.

Hey nice to hear from our brothers out west! Half pole I have read the western forums from time to time about perch fishing, and I kind of think that the perch tend to run bigger in the eastern basin, and maybe less numbers of fish. There have been a few times when I went out where I didn't catch my limit, but caught more keepers than throw backs. (by a large percentage)

I guess what I would like to do is learn to target the larger sized perch, rather than just go out and pull up small fish. Maybe it isn't possible and I'm smoking something I shouldn't be

[Hoss928]

I know the "small ones" would be big ones on other lakes. I think we get spoiled when getting the big Erie jacks that we get. We use to get 8 inchers on Silver lake years ago & say they were the big ones (silver lake specials we called them). Seneca Lake has big perch if anyone ever goes there,thats fun but I haven't done that in years.

I Have heard of the big perch in Seneca lake. Just so happens I have a friend that lives on the southern end.
Hopefully in the next year or two I will make the trip from central Ohio up to Seneca to see one of the monsters.

[half pole]

Yeah the perch are a lot bigger in the central and eastern basin than in western end. don't no if its because the deeper water or what. gonna try to schedule a trip with fishkiller next year sometime to see what fishing is like up there on your end for the monster perch.