Perch fishing at night

[mike304]

hey guys. has anyone out there ever tried or had any luck jigging for perch at night? i never have tried it but it would give me more time to fish, but i don't want to waste my time. just trying to figure out any way to fish more.

[MikeThePike]

From prior experience perch are pretty much blind after dark. Crappie hit well though.

[IceGeek]

I fish alot at night and the only things I catch at night are walleyes, crappie, rock bass and an occassional largemouth...never any perch though

[Icenutter]

Perch have bad eye sight and they usually do not feed at night time.  Usaully at first light they turn on and will pretty much feed all day. 

[princecraft]

One time and one time only, I walked out on the ice at 5 am and a couple guys were walking off with a bucket full of nice perch.  Talked to them a little bit and they said they caught them all from 3 am to 5 am

[hali-man]

That is very unusual! One or two, ok, but a bucket full?
I've never caught a perch in the dark.

[fishingking]

I was fishing a derby in February and found that at about 4am it actually starts getting lighter out and the perch start moving around marked a bunch and caught a few it was really stange but I guess thats when they start to feed

[grumpymoe]

I too thought it was pretty much impossible to get perch in the dark....but last winter on an overnighter, I caught a 13 1/4" at 2:50 am.....suprised the heck considering we were hoping to nail some burbot.....rare though....Grump

[madporider]

like thay say even a blind squirrel will find a nut

[ChenBassHead]

You know, I was out crappie fishing the other night, and I caught 10-12 perch, and some 'seeds, but couldn't get the crappies to take my jig.   Weird...

-Zach

[Pasquatch]

Perch's eyes need alot of light to see well, like pike. At night perch are almost blind...in the summer, if you go scuba diving after dark in a lake with a good population, with a lantern on your boat you can actually grab the perch while they lay on the bottom. Walleye feast on small perch when they are resting on the bottom.

[AirManCam]

Funny.
Walleye and perch being of the same family.
But walleye are actually light sensitive preferring to become active and feed in low light conditions and perch being the opposite.
Like I said, "Funny!".

Mac

I never thought about it like that, but hey that is a good conclusion!

[tip-uptwo]

Perch have bad eye sight and they usually do not feed at night time.  Usaully at first light they turn on and will pretty much feed all day. 

Ditto

[ICE LUNATIC]

I have caught a few trying to get the shiny eyes but other than that,never done it!

[crappieloo]

You perch fisherman think its ''weird or unuseuall'' to catch them at night. A crappie fisherman catches them at all hours of the night. I know i have caught hundreds. If yual not sure catch the '' perch facts'' threads.
Crappieloo

[fishcrusher]

THE odd time, they do feed at night, I ve found when a low is moving in.  BUT they use more lateral line, and smell to track down food.  Fish are creatures of habit.  When borometric changes to induce feeding, they will, maybe not agressively searching to say, but if they can find it and zone in they will hit-  The chances of eveything falling together (pressure, bait, depth) are like those days when you absolutey destroy the fish, and then the next day you don't.  Just not a regular thing.
Fishcrusher

[crowkiller]

day or night does it matter as long as you are fishing

[Reel Wet Ride]

I've caught a few perch at night, but honestly I think you'd be wasting your time targeting them after sunset. If you want to fish after dark target species that are more active during that time I.E. Crappie/Walleye/Trout/ Gills to some extent.

Like Mac said, perch pretty much go into chill mode as the light dims. Which is why its the same time that walleye turn on the feed bag. Perch being the main forage in most lakes make an easy meal when their half asleep.

[fishinmastah]

ive never caught any perch through the ice at nite but on openwater i have caught them alot on my camp all throught the nite

[iceman1]

I began catching perch around sunset and the bite would go for a long time in to the dark. Some guys wouldn't start coming out until dark.


Just my 2 cents

[taxi1]

I've been catching perch just after dark with a lantern setting on the ice (or the pier depending on if the ice was coming or going ) However I'm not sure i would classify this as a real night bite due to the shallow water (they are a foot or two off the bottom in about 9 feet of water) and the amount of light radiating down into the water column.

They are also biting good at dusk but they do stop at some point after dark.

[crappieloo]

Here's another one caught after 10:00pm.

[taxi1]

Just another example of how you can never say never in nature. Animals are very adaptable. If they weren't their species wouldn't still be here.

[crappieloo]

Just another example of how you can never say never in nature. Animals are very adaptable. If they weren't their species wouldn't still be here.

Yep, we always are open to whatever type of fish that will bite into the dark hours of the night,even tho they say''they don't bite at night''.

[crowkiller]

nice sunnys n perch

[Reel Wet Ride]

Here's another one caught after 10:00pm.

Key word.....ONE.

[Swift]

20-30 years ago it was a fairly common practice on certain lakes in my area. Wasn't uncommon to have 15-20 guys out on an all nighter catching Perch. There was the general flurry around dawn and dusk, as usual, then it would die off until 10:00 and would stay fairly consistant until 4:00. Best bet was small minnows on one rod and something noisy on another, just off bottom, around a point or cut, right where the break line flattened towards the basin. Haven't seen anyone doing it for years but it was effective for some good sized ones and worth while numbers.

[crappieloo]

Key word.....ONE.

Thats not the key word. If you check the ''perch facts''  first you know i don't fish for them.
Secondly were fishing for crappies and gills 2 to 4 feet DOWN so we dont catch perch.
Thirdly(and i posted this before) one night i fell in the middle of the lake going to my crappie spot and couldn't go any farther (another 1/4 mile) so i had a ''bad'' spot. I caught between 70 to 80 perch and no crappies. I quit around 12 or 1 am because of catching perch. BTW they were all caught 2 to 5 feet down.
Makes you wonder if i was trying to catch them. Probablly would have caught 100 of them.

[iceintheveins]

Perch generally shut down around dusk because they have such poor dark vision. I have caught a couple fishing for walleye, trout, or crappie after dark, but it's not common even in lakes filled with perch.

[Reel Wet Ride]

Crappieloo-
 Alright, alright, I never said you couldn't catch perch at night, my original statement was simply that if I were to target a species after dark so i could get in some extra fishing time, that perch wouldn't be 1st on my list because they "normally" aren't known to be nighttime feeders. Maybe in the lake that you fish, they have become night feeders do to their main prey in the lake, fishing pressure, water clarity, unusual strain, or whatever it may be, but the general rule of thumb is that perch are not typically active night feeders.
Now if you were to set up over a big school of perch, due to their lack of activity or movement after dark would it be possible a ton of fish from that school...of course it would.

So I apologize if you took that "ONE being the key word" comment as a knock on your fishing skills, wasn't really my intent.

RWR