8/13 perch report

We had 4 people in the boat today so the potential to take 120 perch. However, we could only fish for a half day.

At 6:05, we bought our minnows from A-N-J, which included some emeralds. We launched from Fenwick about 6:30 and were set up before 7 all by our lonesome a mile south of A Can. We picked up 2 perch there right away but then nothing.

We used spreaders with no bling - except my buddy used what I would describe as a crappie rig with arms and green bling. Eventually he put that away due to lack of success and switched to a regular no-bling perch spreader like the rest of us.

We also had a rod off each back corner of the boat sitting unattended. These were rigged with bottom bouncers and crawler harnesses.

We gradually made our way to just north of A Can where there was a pack of 5 other boats. We got a couple more perch there, plus a cat, a couple tasty drum - and a 19" walleye on one of those crawler harnesses.

After a few hours we still only had a few keeper perch. So we picked up and motored over to the big pack. There were about 30 boats exactly half way between A Can and B Can. We set up just to the southwest of that pack in 23 feet of water.

There we did better, especially when there was cloud cover. Except I had a 2-hour draught while everyone else caught. We all had the same rigs and same technique. But I was on the sunny (east-facing) side of the boat while the other 3 were on the west-facing side. My hypothesis is that they were fishing in the boat's shadow. As the winds shifted and the boat turned and the sun progressed across the sky, I began to catch while some of the other stopped catching. I think they lost the shadow and I gained it.

There were countless dead shrimp-like creatures floating on the surface here. Maybe they were spiny fleas? I don't know. Reminded me of little shrimp with rust-colored heads (or maybe those were the tails).

Then we had one of those "only on Erie" moments. I checked my crawler harness every half hour or so to make sure there was still a crawler on it. One time, I pulled it up and instead of a crawler, it was baited with a minnow. This minnow was the same size as the shiners we bought but it was not a shiner. It was too small by far to eat the crawler. Somehow, the crawler got stripped off the harness and this minnow got snagged. Makes no sense to me.

Anyway, we took home 31 yellow perch, 2 drum, 2 cats and 1 walleye. Threw back 6 or 8 small perch and 2 small drums. Zero other species. I think we would have kept catching if we could have stayed longer. It really seemed to turn on about 11 o'clock.

Thanks for taking time to share your day on the water. I will be headed that way in two weeks with my wife and grandkids, I hope they catch a few

Sounds like a twilight zone moment for you today.Thats why it's called Erie.

Hopefully things will get even better when these 90 degree days go on by us....to hot for even the fish.....