I've seen a lot of posts on other forums complaining of issues catching ANY perch east of the Islands. I made one trip to Ashtabula this year walleye fishing and noticed a lot of spiny water fleas fouling my downrigger lines. My theory is that the perch feed on these spiny water fleas more than people realize and that there are more spiny water fleas the further east you go. Another observation is that Lake Ontario has way more spiny water fleas than Lake Erie. Perhaps the abundance of perch in Lake Erie is why the spiny water fleas are not as much of a nuisance in our Lake? I'm certainly no expert and have no data, but those are my thoughts.