Perch Fishing

[Mark Komo]

There are still bitin like crazy off sturgeonl. Was out there yesterday and saturday. Did pretty good. bigger minnows for bigger perch, just less action. I dead stick a roach. Smaller minnows for better action and the occassional jumbo. I used one of my midwest river flies on a 3 way with a bit of crawler. Got smoked quite a few times. Was gonna try a phelps floater next.

[lineman49]

Anyone getting minnows at the foot of Ferry st. & is there any good size to them? Anyone still doing good on the eyes? Thanks

[yellowpike1]

went to the ft ferry this about 9 am not many there and small couple weeks i think that or early or just before dark yellowpike1 OUT

[copo427ss]

Went out of sturgeon this morning. Headed west. Met up with a ton of boats in 69 fow. Perch were all over and thick but small. They were suspended at 55-60. Caught a few keepers but would lose them at the boat. Lots of 7-8inchers. Must have caught a 150+ fish. Line would hit the bottom flip the bail closed and boom doubles almost every time. All on minnows. Gave up there and headed to silver creek. 58fow. Some boats were there also. Then we started to catch keepers. Biggest was 14in. There's a lot of bait out there right now. On the surface and down deeper. In fact they were so thick at times you could feel the school swim into the lines. Interesting side note. All the fish out at 69fow were spitting up crushed and half digested zebra mussels. They were full of them. When we moved down to silver creek, the perch were spitting up small gobys and minnows. One hacked up a 5 inch smelt (I think it was.) Also got a few white perch mixed in and one fatty sheepie out at 70ft.

[wnyguy]

Copo we were out this morning also, launched right at 6:30am, headed west and ended up in 64-66 ft of water, man we crushed them today as well. Weird thing was they started small, maybe first 10 between 2 of us, and I'm thinking o no here we go again, but then the majority of them got bigger, lots of 10-12 inchers and 13s and a few 14s as well. We never moved, non-stop action just like you said. As soon as bait nears the bottom they were hitting it, it was crazy easy! Some throwbacks but the majority of fish were keepers. We had a cooler full best perch day this year just got lucky right spot I guess. We headed back in at 11am it got hot and I was just sweating, lake was very calm. My friend also pulled up a sheephead as well, probably 12-15 inches or so.

I was marking fish all day long, they were constantly moving in and out, but lots of fish weren't suspended, they were on the bottom 2 feet of lake it seemed. Lots of fish had minnows in their mouths but I figured those were the ones stealing my bait lol. Sometimes schools moved in that were "thicker", and we would catch a small one. I could see many boats out deeper than we were. Next time if we are out together we should compare notes to see how deep they are. I used both salted and live shiners. (2 hooks)

Did you see that baja that launched? I was putting the boat on the trailer when he fired it up man that thing was loud. His yellow truck had air brakes, trailer was a triple axle.

Also some jet-skier was launching his boat, still had his jet ski strapped to the trailer, he started driving away from ramp and there goes jet ski getting dragged almost up ramp

[falbinki]

I will be fishing at chautauqua lake next week and am looking for some info. I would like to run over to barcelona to do some perch fishing, but i have no idea if the perch are even over there. i only hear reports over to the catt. never really hear anything about dunkirk or barcelona. Would i just be wasting my time looking for perch over there? And if they are there any idea what depth to start at? Thanks for any help guys.

[lineman49]

I will be fishing at chautauqua lake next week and am looking for some info. I would like to run over to barcelona to do some perch fishing, but i have no idea if the perch are even over there. i only hear reports over to the catt. never really hear anything about dunkirk or barcelona. Would i just be wasting my time looking for perch over there? And if they are there any idea what depth to start at? Thanks for any help guys.

Out of Dunkirk try around the harbor departure buoy in 40-50 fow, should be boats in the area. Years ago we out of Barcelona we got perch in front of a/the pump house/green? to the west of the harbor 45+ fow. Not sure if the pump house is there anymore? Ask the harbormaster he might know some info. Good Luck.

[falbinki]

Thanks ty-lure. Anyone else have any insight on what might be going on out of barcelona.

[lineman49]

Anyone know if there are any bait minnows in the upper river to dip ?? Thanks

[Fishon51]

Anyone know if there are any bait minnows in the upper river to dip ?? Thanks

Heard there was still bait at Foot of Ferry.