Perch

[5285]

8/5 Back out to south of A can. Fantastic morning 2 hours 60 nice perch, again 25 lbs at Shatto's fish cleaning, on goldies from Bite Me Bait. 3 hook crappie rigs.

Had an incident this morning that I think warrants mentioning. I am always mildly annoyed by people traveling into and out of a pack of boats and leaving a large wake, but this morning was something much more. An inconsiderate jerk-wad in a red and white 27' hard top Sportcraft left the pack around 10 o'clock at full throttle and passed 100 feet off my bow. he blew the boat beside me off his anchor and rearranged most of the gear in my boat. If you are that discourteous punk and a stranger walks up and slaps you upside the head; it means I found you.

[5285]

Fished Fri Sat Sun. Spent a lot of hours around A can, fished B can, picket fence, Big Pick Reef, Crib Reef, K Can. Marked fish everywhere I fished, never got a good bite going all weekend. Friday was the best, worked on the boat all day, left the dock at 5:30 and back to the dock by 9pm. 2 of us caught 42 fish with 2 moves North and South of A can. Saturday headed to A can at 8:30, rode out the storm caught 18 perch and came in at noon. Went to K can Sat evening 2 hours 16 more perch. Suday 4 of us Fished the reefs and Picket fence. Same thing every spot, anchor up, pull 2-5 then 1 or 2 fish an hour. Came in at 1pm with 39. Every perch was full of small shad, and bugs. Warm water and plenty of forage makes for Dog Days of August. If your like me and don't have anything better to do it ain't a bad way to kill time. If you are dissappointed with less than limit trips, you may want to find something else to do for a while.

[5285]

9/30 Back out to the same spot north of crib 21 fow. 3 of us caught 90 perch, 2 nice small mouth, white perch and baby walleye (gently returned). The perch weighed 36 lbs at Shatto's and were caught on emerald shiners from A and Js. All of us were using 3 hook crappie rigs. The perch came in waves a few singles then some doubles then wait 15 minutes and start over, The bass and white perch showed up in between the yellow perch schools. multiple 12 & 13" perch with quite a few 11". Weather was absolutely perfect.

[5285]

8/9/19
Left Green Cove at 1pm, headed to D can to see if the third hand report I got was accurate. Fished 2 hours and kept (18) 8 to 10" perch. Released (14) 4 to 6" perch. The good news is caught (0) sheephead, made a 500 foot circle before I anchored and marked lots of perch spread out. No heavy concentrations but lots of scattered fish. Bites were really light, I could only use 1 rod, when I tried 2 I was missing fish on both on both rods. Used 3 hook crappy rig with 3/4oz weight, and lip hooked goldies. Miserable 45 minute ride back at 12 miles an hour. Looks like the wind is laying down tomorrow, should be a better ride in the morning.

[PatSea]

Thanks for the detailed report

[sloch24]

Similar story for us. My wife and I fished about 1/2 mile West of A can and picked up 5 keepers, 4 sheephead, and 2 fingerling walleye. Waves were every bit of 2' with 3+ swells. We fished Sunday morning from 8:00 to 11:00 and headed back in to Meinke West. It was a little rougher than what we like to fish in. Hopefully next Sunday will be better.

[Capt. Ted]

I've had similar experiences this year. In the last month, fishing for perch, using every bait and technique under the sun, 4 trips kept 12 perch. Caught some shorts also.

What baffles me is the marks. I've have anchored over the best marks I've seen for years. They look like yellow perch marks, and still we catch very little trash. This seems to go along with what the dnr is saying about the population being above average. Just no bites....

[5285]

9/13-14-15
3 trips, 4 perch total
I am pretty sure no one cares where I caught them, or what I was using, so I figured I would write about what I am thinking. I will start with a little background. I have been fishing Lake Erie since 1976. Mostly out of Wild Wings, and West Harbor, with an 8 year break at Avon when the perch fishing there was to good to ignore. I go after walleye until the perch bite starts in June or July, then I fish for perch most weekends until Thanksgiving. I have fished good population years and poor ones, and I know what that looks like. This is the first time I have ever witnessed the perch not schooling up somewhere. Some years the schools were small and some years they were big, but it always happened. There have been tough years when the schools moved a lot, and you had to look from Toledo to Marble head, but they were always being caught somewhere if you talked to enough guys.

I did catch 1 or more walleye all 3 days drifting a harness over locust on the way back in. Not much of a consolation, I'd rather be catching perch.

[Lucky Duck]

I put my boat away. I can get it out, but that long hours of fishing and moving drives me crazy. I have lots of other things I could be doing around the house. But then again, it sounds like I should still be chasing those walleye!

[daleho10]

We were fishing @1/2 mile west of A can and 4 of us only caught 7 keepers but had lots of 6" perch to throw back along with several white perch. Should have moved but with strong wind was having a hard time getting anchor to hold.