Perch Fishing

[lineman49]

Got out this Am. West of SP 70 fow caught lots of small ones kept 80-100 better ones maybe 8-10 over 13". Lots of boats out today! Fished dons. wall last night got 2 a 21 & 24 " eyes.

[wnyguy]

Lineman were there many boats with you? One of my spots was 70 ft and there were only a couple of boats there when I stopped about 10:30am. (It grew to about 8 or so) I threw back almost all of mine the majority were under 9.5 inches.

[fishkiller16]

I was out today with a perch charter, we ended up with 36 keepers over 10 inches, and well over 100 that we throw back. We also had a nice 8.5 pound Walleye as a bonus. 68 foot of water around the 40 / 10 line. A couple of guys from work we're fishing next to us they ended up with 50 keepers. They were keeping some smaller fish than us. It was tough getting bait out of the river today, but we got enough for 2 boats worth. I should be going back out either Wednesday or Friday.

[lineman49]

I counted 37 boats by us. There was another fleet that looked like they were in front of the Catt. We threw a bunch back but I don't like that most die. I wish I knew what to do with the bladder& let them live, any ideas??

[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.

[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.