Perch

[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.