Perchin' off Huron.

Went out and east from the Huron river yesterday to 42 fow. We got 2 limits using crappie rigs and small minnows (they said these were the spawn of the year), took 4 hours. Got out at 9 am, lake went from calm, to mild chop, to calm, to like glass, to heavier chop to calm all in 5 hours. Caught 67 yellow perch and only 6 trash fish, that was a first. Only brought in 59 YP, I guess I do not know how to count to 60. Learned what a line of perch looked like on the fish finder which would also pick up our crappie rigs, so we started to lift the rigs to match the depth of the perch as they came through and that worked out pretty well.

59 was a better number than having 61. Better to be safe than sorry.

I hear you there! Went out again yesterday. It was choppy with lots of swells. Only got 9 YP, could not stay out where I wanted to be. The lake never did lay down. I think that the wind picked up even more come sun down. That was not the desired out come for the day when you trailer your boat 160 miles one way. Some days you get them, some days you don't. Still had fun. Fred.

Hi Fred, Thank you for the reply on where to go to get fished cleaned. That is about 55miles away from Cleveland, but the air show is there this weekend so I am going to stay away from there. So since you say the perching is good in Huron, I was wondering if you could tell me where to launch and get bait. I am not familer with Huron so an address would be great, then I can jus put it in my GPS. Any tips on where to go on the lake and depth would be great too. Thank you, Basspro

OK here we go. Go into Huron, the main drag is Cleveland Rd. West of the river find RT13, go south over the rr tracks and on the left is a good drive thru/bait shop. Pick their heads for local info. I did very well at the dump grounds, out of the river north by west, N-29., W-34. You are close to Cedar Point. I also go straight out of the river, north to 42 fow and do well. Go back out to Clev RD. and head toward the river, just before the river is a gravel rd. that goes beside and under the river bridge, this is where you launch, cost 5 bucks, honor system with envelopes at shack at door. Heading out of the river on left just past the closed The Platt restaurant is Fred's cleaning service. Restaurants to try, just east of the river on Clev Rd. is 1st Berardi's, best perch dinner also get a cup of bisque, 2nd just a little farther is Marconi's. Also near 13 and the launch area is the Pied Piper for you ice cream needs, try a Nut Dip. This should cover it. If you need more info just ask. If all goes well, I will be out there also. Fred.

You asked for an adress, Huron Bait and Supply, 38 N. Main St., Huron , Ohio 44839. This is also where the cleaning service is. If you take RT2 west out of Clevetown, before you get to Huron, you will see an exit for RT13. Go north on 13 and it will take you to the drive thru/bait shop, it will be on the right.

what is a line of perch ?

I learned by studying my fish finder while at anchor what the perch look like as they swim by under the boat. If I was in 34 fow, I would see a black line appear on the fish finder at a depth of 31 ft and start getting hits and fish. No line, no action. Sometimes it would be a thicker line like a ribbon or several smaller lines like fingers, I would call that attack formation because the action would be fast with many doubles. My fish finder will pick up my crappie rig, so I would lift the bait to match the exact depth of the line of fish and that seemed to work well. So that is what I call a line of perch.

OK I thought that since I always get my bait robbed by thoes guys there was a police line up :D

It would be hard to tell who is who, they all look alike!

Thank you for the info Fred, I will be up there around 11:00 sat. coming out of Akron. One of the guys has to cash his paycheck or would be there earlier.
Will let ya know how we did sat. night.

What part of Akron, I was born and raised there, near 77 and 18.

In Ellet, close to 76 and 18. You must have live by Fairlawn or Bath?

Went out of Huron river yesterday. Picked up 20 perch between 2 of us. The thrid guy got too sea sick to fish, he would not let us take him back in to get the dramine(sea sick pills) out of the van for him. Futher out from the pack we did pick up about 40 nice white bass. Got a late start, I think we would have done better on the Perch earlier in the morning.

Two of us went out Saturday, got out at 9:30 am and fished it hard. Saw lots of fish on the fish finder, but ended up with 46 perch between us. Real slow bite. Some places we went to produced ONLY white perch and drum. We got out of there. Finally off the the mouth of the Huron river in 32 fow at 5 PM the perch started hitting again pretty hard. I kept telling my partner that we really have to go in so that I can take the family out to dinner. He catches a double as I baited my hook. Then I get a double and state that we really have to go in. An hour later we caught as many perch as we did in the first 7 hours out there. My wife said out of one side of her mouth that if they were hitting like that you should have stayed and out of the other side of her mouth she asked why I wasn't back when I said I would be.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

I see. At first I thought you were referring to the other boats at anchor doing what you were doing. I have had jet skiis come by while I was tearing up white bass and totally ruin the bite.