Late Fall Perch Report - Outer Light Shipping Channel

[holdenkind]

Long time reader, first time posting. My brother and I hit the water early yesterday morning out of Cullen Park after grabbing some shiners from Fisherman's Cave up the street. Set anchor around 8:40AM just west of the second shipping channel buoy marker past the lighthouse in 21' of water. It was pretty chilly that early in the morning, about 38 degrees. The first 30-45 mins was slow with only two fish, but as the temp started rising so did the bite. We steadily pulled 9-11" perch with a few 12's mixed in for 2 hours until the wind kicked up as it shifted from the west to the south. The fishing was not exactly up and down, but every 3-4 mins we had one on the line. Ended with 4 doubles during the trip, those are always fun - my brother fished spreader with bling and I fished crappie rig with a Canadian spreader on the bottom. The bite slowed down with the higher winds, but within 45 mins the breeze slowed down and we started hitting again. However, the size of fish was a little smaller, ranging more 7-9". Finally the last hour we saw some more of the 10-11" fish biting. Weather was great, we were the only boat west of the shipping channel, but there was a pack of about 15-20 boats directly across from us on the east side, could not really tell how well they were doing. We finished up with a 60 fish limit of really nice fish by 3:00PM. Threw back a dozen small perch, 8-10 white bass, one 24" catfish, and a 5" walleye. Hoping to get at least 1 more trip in before packing it up for the winter.

[Ole fisherman]

Thanks for that report, been wondering how the channel area was doing...