Limit of Perch

[trollingfool]

Went fishing out by colechester again and caught our limit of perch! Some we very good size, very light bite but we were marking tons of walleye wished I would have taken walleye gear as well there were schools everywhere and some big marks from 8 feet down on to 29 feet on the bottom, going to go again sat will try for both.

[THampton]

just want to say my brother and i are pretty new at fishing the area,went out and found sputnik and turnaround buoy,marked tons of fish but strange thing they were off botom most were 10ft of to 10ft under and looked like perch, we would stop here and there and only catch a couple at any one spot, never did do well,also trolled quite abit for walleye and got two all day,used a variety of lures and colors-what are we doing wrong and whats with the perch off bottom?
thanks for any help -you all know how much work and cost it can be to go fishing and to come back pretty much empty handed is a bit disapointing but i enjoy all fisning trips.
tom hampton-michigan

[sherman51]

if you were marking schools of perch up high it probably wasnt perch, it was probably some type of other bait fish. as for your trolling you might have been going to deep for the eyes. sometimes if the baitfish are up high the eyes will be up high also. were you marking any big marks up high?? if so next time try something that will run alittle shallow. it has paid off for me before to run something about 10 to 12 ft down. just a suggestion.
sherman

[trollingfool]

I'm sorry fellas it doesn't appear you understood what I was saying. The perch were on the bottom the walleye were all over the screen from 8 feet down to 29 feet deep. The reason it took so long to catch our limit was the walleye were chasing and feeding on the perch. When I go tomorrow I will take my walleye rods and try trolling for walleye! The biggest walleye were about 8 feet down to 15 feet down.

Hampton check your fish finder and look at the bottom when you mark alot of fish on the bottom those are usually perch but you have to be used to reading your graph and know what fish are what because of what you are catching. I am only saying this because I don't know what you are using for a graph. I have the HDS 8 and when I mark a pod of perch the color changes in a blob not a hook like when I mark a walleye don't be afraid to move alot either searching for active fish. Also I know that they are catching alot of perch by west sister about 1 mile n/e. Colechester is in Canada right in front of the communication tower in 29 feet of Water also the perch were biting on the hook that looks like a fly pink in color.

[trollingfool]

the perch rigs were tipped with walleye shiners

[THampton]

thanks for the info and yes we did have some large marks really high right up to 5ft, and many at 10-15ft,have you ever just ran a surface bait like rapala floater and caught fish?they dive maybe 4ft or so.
tom

[trollingfool]

Yes I have but I use planer boards and j11 to j13 rapalas and reef runners. use clown color and perch colored. do you have downriggers? if so it is easy to just run them a couple feet above where you are marking fish when trolling deeper. I run back about 40 ft then attach the planers and experiment with speed anywhere from 1.3 to 2.0 just depends on how aggressive they are. Hope this helps. going again tomorrow tight lines all