Let's talk about perch

[Hog Daddy]

Getting back to fishing, lol.  It's 47 degrees , and I am currently taking a break from splitting firewood, so going to throw this out to you guys that are experts.  If I want to get into some perch thru the ice, where do I start?  Best baits for Indiana.  Type of rod setup.  Best live baits.  Most common depths.  Techniques.  Biggest problems.

There you go.... perch fishing 101 Indiana style.  Thanks in advance.

HHD

[bubbagill]

Jigmup is the resident perch expert here by far.  But here is my novice take on the few quality Perch I have caught.  They have came on inside turns in 8' to 32' of water on Northland spoons with a minnow head.  I have only caught a small number of good perch and have not topped the 12" mark so  take my advise lightly, as I am not an expert and don't typically target perch. 

[Hog Daddy]

One thing I haven't quite understood is why in this south central area of Indiana, I've never really caught any jumbo porkers.  There are small populations in several of the lakes around here, but only get maybe 10 inches and narrow girth.  Not sure why the further north you go , the bigger they grow it seems.  I remember reading in a farm magazine sometime back, an article about people who raised commercial yellow perch in ponds somewhere in northeastern Indiana I believe.  From the pictures, seemed like a good place to buy a few to impress the wife if you pretty much sucked at catching them.

HHD

[High Tide]

One thing I haven't quite understood is why in this south central area of Indiana, I've never really caught any jumbo porkers.  There are small populations in several of the lakes around here, but only get maybe 10 inches and narrow girth.  Not sure why the further north you go , the bigger they grow it seems.  I remember reading in a farm magazine sometime back, an article about people who raised commercial yellow perch in ponds somewhere in northeastern Indiana I believe.  From the pictures, seemed like a good place to buy a few to impress the wife if you pretty much sucked at catching them.

HHD

It's all about habitat, perch prefer mesotrophic stage lakes, and most of southern Indiana is eutrophic, which is not conducive to their preferred forage base either... If you have deep, clear, natural lakes... You'll likely have jumbos!

[Hog Daddy]

HT, I'm going to have to get out my dictionary.  I noticed you are not out on the boat catching crappie right now...unless of course you are using your smart phone , lol.  I noticed Jigmup has a fettish for wigglers...which I had to look up to see exactly what they were... eg brown drake mayfly nymph?  I'm assuming that was a prefered perch bait?

HHD

[High Tide]

HT, I'm going to have to get out my dictionary.  I noticed you are not out on the boat catching crappie right now...unless of course you are using your smart phone , lol.  I noticed Jigmup has a fettish for wigglers...which I had to look up to see exactly what they were... eg brown drake mayfly nymph?  I'm assuming that was a prefered perch bait?

HHD

I'm on baby duty... Other daughter has gymnastics meet. Wigglers are the equivalent to meth to an addicted. Wigglers/mayflies don't make it down to your neck of the woods or at least reproduce. The bad thing with wigglers, they're difficult to keep alive (which is why most bait shops don't carry, and pricey! However, if you're fishing a deep natural lake in the mesotrophic phase (middle aged, natural, moderately fertile, cool water environment stage) they're worth every penny!! 

[river_scum]

hog daddy, toss up a contour map of one of your lakes, and let the perch guys pick it apart. best learning tool there is. imo

the very few nice ones i have caught have either been up on a flat or at the base of the drop, or close to it.

[rico]

Jigmup and HT know a heckuva lot more about them than I do.  I have lived amongst perch water all my life and I aint got them figured out.  Seems like when I catch the big ones I am actually fishing for something else....walleye or crappie.  So I normally have that kind of rig on.  A pimple, buckshot spoon, or a rap works best for me, tipped with a full minnow, minnow head, or even a few spikes or a waxie.

[Jigmup]

I Love chasing perch. Walleye and Perch are my fishing passions! When Ice goes on, I tend to fish for these two species exclusively. I can say that in the northern tier of Indiana the big, deep and clear bodies of water make up a large portion of the "Jumbo Perch fisheries" but there are definitely exceptions. I tend to lean towards different optimal habitat vs. the next  for holding jumbo's because after all we don't really have a Devils Lake, Winnebegosh, Leach or Winnebago to compare to.

While the trophic state of a lake can play a major part in the factors that determine Perch success, I don't and never will decide on a lake to fish because of a classification system. I can name Oligotrophic lakes, Mesotrophic lakes, Eurthrophic and even hypereutrophic lakes that produce giant perch. I'm not saying that it isn't a factor, it is. I'm not trying to discount anyones observations either. HT knows his stuff but what I can tell you is what I know from experience.

My opinion is that the success of the perch fishery is determined by the predator/prey relationship. Yes, water quality is a factor....no doubt, but you can stock the cleanest, deepest, clearest lake in the world with perch but if you cant feed them enough and you can't keep their numbers in check, You won't grow Jumbo's. A long time ago, the Linder clan tied Jumbo perch success to water body size. Basically they said that the bigger the lake the better the chance of growing hawgs. This holds true with the mega perch factories and oddly enough a lot of them do not share the same trophic classification. What they do share is forage  abundance. Take Devils Lake for example, While the Walleye and Pike have young of the year perch, Bluegills, Crappie and white bass to key in on, the perch get a forage base all to themselves.....Freshwa ter shrimp!
On Wawasee the primary forage base is Crawfish for the perch and this gives them a source of food that is only shared with a few species. A lot of big Impoundments have giant shad blooms and there are numerous reservoirs that grow giant perch. There are ponds that produce big big perch. there are river systems that grow beasts.
With this said, there are just as many bodies of water that grow perch but the size is down. The DNR guages perch success by growth rates based on a state average. There are bodies of water right next to each other that at one time (maybe 25,000 years ago) were the same body of water. I've seen them this close together be worlds apart in their production. I've also seen lakes within a region produce very similar and mind boggling perch.

While I put credence in everything documented or studied about Perch, I still believe that there is a whole lot about them that we are just figuring out.

I will say that at this time of year, on northern Indiana deep natural lakes, the place to search for big perch is on main lake humps, bars and flats, especially transition areas leading to the deepest main lake basin. I wouldn't discount shallow areas as well but my experience tells me not to start there.

I could go on and on and most likely bore the snot out of everyone here so I won't. I will try to answer any specific question you have and I'm sure others will chime in. I am certainly not the lone authority on Perch fishing and I can tell you I will never stop learning when it comes to fishing for them but I can tell you with certainty that I cannot find another freshwater fish besides Walleye that rivals them in the skillet!

[bubbagill]

And there you have it.  I told ya he was the Guru.

[AlgaeKilla]

I can tell you with certainty that I cannot find another freshwater fish besides Walleye that rivals them in the skillet!

You need to get you a mess of them silvers and cut the red meat out. yummy!

[Jigmup]

soak em in buttermilk Ryan?

[AlgaeKilla]

No, I use battery acid. It takes the bite out of the "fishiness".

[iceon]

Maxinkuckee has the biggest perch I've ever caught or seen caught. #2 jigging rapala, Swedish pimple tip with a perch eye. Caught the biggest to date bouncing a nightcrawler off the bottom. I'll try to loading a pic. Over a pound almost made 17 inches.

[iceon]

Well trying this again. If it doesn't work just pretend you saw it LOL.

[Mhofferman]

Didn't work...

[bgriffis17]

some maxi perch

[Hog Daddy]

Holy cow.  That could give you an adrenalin rush.  I don't think there is any following for perch fishing down in this part of the state, only because the ones we catch here are hardly worth the effort to fillet.  I had never caught any big perch until I accidentally snagged one while soft water fishing with HT.  Those get your blood pumping. 

RS...looking at a map down here a moot point really I think...but would be interesting to take a lake like maxi and talk about what kind of structure to look for.

Thanks ....Jigmup....don't stop...keep going.  Interesting stuff.  I've heard you guys talk about having fast sinking baits...so sounds like you are fishing mostly deep water then and need to get bait down fast....as schools travel pretty fast?  Seems like I also have the impression that late ice is one of the best time to catch them as they are , I guess heading into more shallow spawning grounds?

So , since you are mostly fishing deep water....I am assuming daytime fishing is just as good at night, or what is the catch ratio of night to day?

I know that once you catch a big one, you are hooked.  Eating is a whole other story.... for me it certainly is in the trifecta perch, walleye, and bluegill.  I'll have to put crappie 4th.

HHD

[Jigmup]

Hog Daddy,
I wouldn't say that Northern Indiana is the only game in the state. Take a look at Dogwood Lake. Northern Indiana just gets ice faster and its usually better. I go North because there is an abundance of Perch lakes up that way so I have options. There are some "Known" perch producers and some that I've heard grapevine discussions about, south of SR 18 so I'll call that Central to South Indiana. Ya know, a bunch of Lakes that we fish for jumbo's have no reports or survey data, we just got the word from someone we know, some dude at at a bar or maybe an over zealous bait shop owner. What I'm getting at is I'm sure that there is a handfull of lakes or reservoirs that have good populations of sizeable perch that fall in the Central to Southern Indiana category. A few I know of but there is certainly more!

[Hog Daddy]

We have such few opportunities down here to fish large water during ice season...which is generally pretty short.  I just watched an ice fishing perch video linked to this site by a canadian using a gopro camera.  He just turned the camera on and lowered it down to the bottom.  It caught my eye , as my daughter just got one of those cameras and has a waterproof case for it.  Anyway, it was pretty interesting watching the perch.  Every once in awhile, he would pound the bottom, stir up some sediment and weeds...which seemed to be a pretty good technique.

HHD

[slabgill]

You know at one time Wax and I could catch Perch pretty well.Hey Wax why dont you try to pull some of our pictures of some Perch hauls.

[Hog Daddy]

When I was a wee lad, in the early days of Monroe, I caught perch in the large basin southwest of the boy scout camp along a secondary channel while drift fishing for gills...split shot , number 6 hook, cricket, lol .  I believe walleye can be had in that area today, but haven't fished it for years.  Not sure if there are any left in that screwed up lake.

HHD

[SkeeterJeff]

There is some fine walleye fishing in that lake these days. (Monroe)

-Jeff

[Hog Daddy]

I meant to say that I still fish monroe ....but not that spot and not targeting perch...so don't know if they are still in there or worth catching.  Walleye....whole other story.

HHD

[kcskypilot]

I wanna be Jigmup when I grow up!!!!

[Jigmup]

trust me, no you don't!

[Jigmup]

When my uncles first got me cutting my teeth ice fishing, I was 9 years old! We would go out to some pretty darn good fisheries and at that time there were no electronics, well, there were no electronics on ice. However, Dink and Don (uncles) were very versed in structure fishing from their spoon plug days and so they transferred that knowledge to the ice. In fact, my father, who hated ice fishing but loved soft water fishing, made me read "spoonplugging" when I was around that age and would quiz me nightly over the chapters that he assigned me to read. It was fun to come to him with things like...."hey what is no-bo line"? Anyway, yeah Dink and Don would have most of the body of water that we were going to fish eliminated before we would even set foot on the ice. They were among the founders of structure fishing! I don't mean that they had anything to do with developing structure fishing but they were guys who took the new philosophy and ran with it!

Luckily for me, they had a passion for Walleye and Perch fishing and the Local reservoir was coming on strong in '77 and really hit its stride in the mid 80's before the cycle caught up with it and things reversed or lessened to a degree. It didn't matter because those days with them would sometimes put 15 to 20 walleye's on the ice as well as 40 to 50 perch. I know it sounds far fetched but it happened, not every time but a lot! That lake, at that time, only had a hand full of fisherman that would venture out and cut a hole over no mans land or at least that had to be what people thought! Any way I grew up next to three of the greatest fisherman I think I will ever know and they are the reason I fish for perch and walleye.

When I got old enough to go by myself, things started to change. My uncles, although phenominal ice fisherman, would be using their home made solder jigs, schooly rods and ice boxes. They still caught fish, tons, but something clicked and I decided that I had to pour my time into getting better. I only had two species so I figured I could get better.

I rigged the old school eagle locator to my ice box where the lantern lid was, gutted the lantern compartment and stored the battery and transducer (fasioned to hacksaw blade to lay across the hole) in the compartment and bought good gloves! This proved effective as I would mark schools and then wait for the bites. My screen would load up and my bobbers would go down....game on! I'd walk backwards and drop back down until I had enough or the fingers were frozen, which would happen often double poling with schooly's!

Something had to give though because there were obviously more fish down there than I was catching and I could only manage a couple  every time they came through. Thats when it happened....thats when I put down the solder jigs. You can finesse a perch all day long, heck sometimes (this weekend) its the only thing that will work but I had to be able to rip lips on the school beneath me. I bought my first kastmaster in like 1987 and from there on out I go to search lures first and finesse lures last. So, all the spoons and swimming lures and bigger jigs made their way to my tackle box and so did lots of fish but if weren't for my Dad, Dink and Don and Buck Perry, I probably would have lost interest somewhere at the age that girls started looking good!

Sorry for the long winded post.....I just dig the heck out of this sport!

[Jigmup]

Oh and yeah, obviously the schooly's became a thing of the past and I started using openfaces and homemade graphite ice rods.

[Beets]

Thanxs jigmup,I remember in 79' Long Lake used to have some decent perch and pike. We would pull the wood box sleds across 2-3ft of snow and using that dull spoon auger,it would take two guys about 5-7 mins to get one hole.I still use my schoolys.Good times!

[Jigmup]

Ok, so when we get safe ice on main lakes I'll tell ya where I'll be. First main lake flat after steepest break prior to basin. I would try and position myself on the base on the flat thats closest to where shallow water weeds would grow or where they may be matted down at the least. Exceptions would be deep bars with deeper water off the end, sides or both. Humps or the bases of. This is for this time of year!