Perch

[5285]

10/19-20-21-22
Two of us started out at L can Thursday several boats were there but we couldn't find any good marks, moved to Crib Reef, 21 fow on the north side and saw some fish on the screen. Fished for 3 hours using emerald shiners from Bite Me Bait, on 3 hook crappie rigs and a chrome 5\8 oz swedish pimple with a 4 inch drop hook on it. The perch were huge, 11 and 12 inch with some 13 and a 14. They were biting short and tearing the minnows off the hooks, so we ran out of bait after catching 31. The catch almost filled a 5 gallon bucket. Friday my brother joined us, the wind was blowing hard out of the south so we went to the picket fence. Wasted a couple of hours moving around and couldn't get anything going. Next we went over to Waterdogs territory and joined a couple of boats at H can. The perch were there and biting but it was slow. We pulled 35 in 3 hours and called it a day. The fish weighed 12 lbs at Shatto's Fish Cleaning. Saturday and Sunday were to rough for us, so we enjoyed a lot of TV football, and good meals at Wild Wings restaurant before heading home Sunday evening.

[5285]

9/1&3
It had been almost 2 weeks since I was on the lake, and that caused a lapse in good judgement when I went out Saturday. Watched the OSU game and watched the waves go from 4 feet to 2 and a half on the intake buoy app. There were 3 footers as I came out of the harbor, and when I dropped off a 5 footer at 12 mph and slammed into the next wave I regretted not taking my 30 foot boat. It took 38 minutes to get out to B can, and there was no question in my mind why I was the only one out there. Made a half mile circle and couldn't find any good marks, So I decided to head back in. Monday the lake settled down to 1 footers so I headed out by myself at 9am. Went back to B can and idled around a pack of about 50 boats. Found some decent marks on the west side of the can and set up on them. Fished for 2 hours and caught 8 keepers and had about that many throwbacks. The second time I moved I couldn't find any schools of fish, just scattered marks, so I motored up to West Sister. Found some marks on the west side in 26 fow. Set there about a half hour with no bites. I turned off the spot lock and was going to drift a hundred yards or so and set back up. When I started drifting I was moving slow enough I let out a crappy rig with a 1 oz weight and drug it across the bottom, went about 20 yards and caught a 10 inch perch. I made 3 drifts in the next 2 hours and picked up 11 more keeper perch and no throw backs. Finished the day with 19 (8 to 11 inch) perch. Surface water temp was down to 72, that's 10 degrees cooler than my last trip, I hope that continues. While I was cleaning the fish some guys stopped by and were grumbling that they hope the 2 to 4 hour 30 fish limits get started here pretty soon and i got to thinking about perch fishing over the years. I have been fishing the lake since 1978, and if I average all those years there were a whole lot more trips with 10 perch catch than there ever were with limits. The last 3 years really spoiled us.