You have to be realistic in your approach to shiners! If there is a full moon then you may not get lake (Emerald)shiners period! They are not easily caught when the moon is full. I have had excellent luck with both fatheads and golden shiners when Emerald are in short supply.
Ask yourself this question, Do I want to run around from bait store to bait store looking for Emeralds when there is a full moon? Even if you called ahead and found out they had some those emeralds may already be gone by the time you get there. Been there done that. So is it goldens, fatheads or mix of lake shiners and goldens or fatheads or off to another bait store that said they had some emeralds when you made your call. Myself I would rather be fishing and not wasting time driving from bait shop to bait shop hoping for emeralds. I have been at this since 1955 and can tell you that in order to catch perch you have to be actively fishing and not chasing down lake shiners in your car for an hour or so.
Just last weekend I stopped at my favorite local bait store and they had no shiners so I bought 2 scoops of golden shiners and a 1 scoop of fatheads. I ended up with 27 nice perch that weighed 12 pounds at the cleaners. At the end it was to hot for me and the bite had died to non existent so I called it a day, had I ran around chasing emeralds I would have not caught the 27 that I did but would have still been hot and had a non existent perch bite when I decided to call it and come in.
I don't think there is an experienced fisherman who frequents this forum who does not believe that the Lake Erie shiner(Emeralds) are the best perch bait for Erie because they are. They would also tell you that during certain periods they are hard to come by for one reason or another. You have to flexible and adapt when things are not as expected.
A little secret to using fatheads is to smash their heads to release some scent and the goldens I smash their stomach until you can see some juice flowing out.
90% of the perch that I catch are what we say in the mud. I use 2 rods whenever possible. Lines to the bottom with an inch or 2 of slack and then either lift every 10 seconds or so or dead stick and watch your rod tip. I catch at least half my perch on a dead stick with a slight amount of slack in the line. I just want the rod to show some weight as the boat rocks and not lift that sinker off the bottom. The next thing is the use of braided line of some kind as it will allow you to feel every little thing that is happening down below and will show you on the dead stick what is happening there.