Perch 8/12 and 8/13

Got up to SBI late Friday evening and drove through some horrible storms (and a tornado warning) to get there. Picked up 3 scoops of shiners and Goldie mix from HiWay on way in.

Saturday AM the wind was still strong SW from storm but was able to sneak into lee of rattlesnake off the run way with a few boats and immediately had good marks and bites. Caught 30 in about 3 hours from 9am-noon, good grade or 8-11” with most being that 8.5-9.5 range. Had a few doubles and a couple spurts of up and down action.

Woke up Sunday excited for quick limit again and was immediately reminded how finnicky perch can be. Went back to same area, and found same marks, but fish had lock jaw. Spent over an hour fishing those marks with only 2 in cooler to show for it. Pulled anchor and headed toward Green and settled between Green and Rattlesnake, closer to rattlesnake, on good marks again. Caught 20 nice perch, mostly 9-10” range, in about 2 hours before I had to go in due to time with 22.

On Saturday pretty much everything worked, but especially 1/2 shiner seemed best. Sunday the smaller baits worked better and they almost seemed to prefer the tiny live goldies I had to the cut shiners.

Both times I was in 30-32 FOW with excellent marks. Was fishing spreader with tru turn #4 hooks, no bling.. those things are sharp and stuck a lot of perch.

Super fun to have such high numbers of nice perch back around.. the last couple seasons have been tough for perchin.

Thanks to all for the reports.. helpful info in this group.