Finding big perch

[redsman]

I have been fishing quite a few times but all I can catch are 3-4 inch perch. I'm using spikes mostly on a Swedish pimple, but I had a guy tell me on Sunday to use perch eyes. The perch definitely hit the pimple way better with the eye on the Swedish pimple, but it's all small ones and I can't justify killing all the small ones to use an eye. How can I find the big ones instead of the small ones?

[adkRoy]

Instead of a swedish pimple, try hali-jigs or tear-drop jigs tipped with spikes.  Also, move around and locate weed beds.  Big perch will be feeding voraciously this time of year in the weed beds. 

[redsman]

New to ice fishing. I'm used to fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. What do those look like? I have jigs but I'm not sure if I have those or not.

[optimus140]

New to ice fishing. I'm used to fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. What do those look like? I have jigs but I'm not sure if I have those or not.

I think the teardrop jigs are the small (4mm, 5mm, etc), teardrop shaped jigs made out of tungsten. The tungsten will sink faster than comparably small, lead jigs because it's denser and heavier, which is useful for ice fishing with light line and little jigs. Where I live, I mostly hear folks tip their jigs with wax worms.

[NYICE84]

Move and move and move again until you find the fish you are looking for, you should try soft plastics too

[Swift]

This time of year - shallow flats with reeds or whatever sticks up in shallower water during mid afternoon. They're investigating areas to breed and are on a bit of a feed because of it. Use your head on the fat females, smallish waters let 'em go, bigger waters and keeping a few is OK for the fishery. It's easy pickin's time

[Glowjigger]

Are you sure that there are big perch in the lake your fishing. One of the lakes I fish is full of 3-4 inch perch and I rarely catch any keeper perch but I go there to fish for crappie and bass. Another lake I fish has a wide size range of perch with many being 10-12 inches. You might want to try a couple different lakes in your area to see which one has the best perch fishing.

[coreyd]

One thing that might help is to keep your bait further off the bottom. Based on others and watching my camera while fishing for perch, if I keep my lure 2-3 feet above any structure on the bottom (weeds) I find that this is generally where the big ones will hit it. All the small guys stay on the bottom for cover and protection and the bigger fish will venture outside of that protection for dinner.

[tornadochaser]

Get out of the weeds and fish the mud basins.

[adkRoy]

Hali-jig:

[Van_Cleaver]

Try fishing plastic on a horizontal jig. Often I get bigger fish on the plastic than on the grub type baits.