Germ,
I also wanted to tell you that I've never seen a 20 inch perch. The lakes I fish here in NY (finger lakes) have a huge forage base of smelt and alewife's which the trout gorge themselves on. These lakes are fairly deep and only freeze up during the coldest winters and even then usually only parts of them freeze. In any event Kueka, and Seneca routinely give up fish in the 17 to 18 inch range which usually top the scales at 2 3/4 to 3 lbs. I've got a 16 1/2 I caught a few weeks ago which was the fattest perch I've ever seen and it went over 2 3/4 lbs. No pics as it's on it's way to the taxidermist. But what I wanted to say was that in the summer when fishing for trout we sometimes pick up these monsters fishing in deep water with alewives (4 to 5 inches long) On kueka in the winter many guys use large bass shiners under tipups/tipdowns to get the big fish. If you want to get into some really big perch in the winter you should consider a trip out to these lakes....
