No reason to not anchor. It's worked for 70+ years. You can try some things like not letting your rig weight hid the bottom so much or not at all. Remember also that perch school, so a large school creates compitition for your bait. If there are a lot of perch around you boat they will find your bait, good vis or poor. Smaller school means less compitition and less fish to find your bait. So many factors. The biggest remains first finding them then having the talent / ability to hook them. Get those two down well and the rest is probably 20% of the equation.