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I have been reading the threads indicating great success Perch fishing this year, so I decided to give it a try last Friday with a friend and his 7 year old son. We left Delaware about 4:30 am for the drive to Lake Erie. After re-reading some of these informative threads on the way to the Lake, and making calls to find live bait, we decided to visit Fisherman’s Wharf in Port Clinton. The employees at FW were very helpful in helping us buy what we needed for our first trip out. We launched out of Catawba State Park and headed toward the Islands to look for marks. We set up using the 3/4 ounce spreaders and combination of emerald shiners and goldies (I think that’s what they are called, they were much smaller). The guys at FW told us to cut the larger emerald shiners into thirds, so we did.

Our bite was very slow in the beginning, but I don’t think we were in the right place. I was trying to figure out where G can was with my nav unit, as a lot of reports said that area was a good place to try. While trying to locate this spot, I couldn’t help notice a spread of about 75-85 boats about another mile from where we were trying our luck. We looked at each other and thought the same thing. We headed toward the pack and made sure to stay a distance and not cramp any ones space. The marks were definitely better and we finally started catching Perch. We got so excited to be catching Perch and keeping his son entertained that we were well on our way to 90. We had to empty the cooler back into the live well twice to recount because we kept forgetting to add on our way to our limit.

The bite was very light and sometimes I would lift my rod thinking it was the motion of the waves and boat and I would have a fish. We finished with our limit about 12:30 and headed back to get some lunch. We considered using the cleaners right across from Fisherman’s Wharf, but the sign on the door said that fish dropped off Friday would be ready the next day. No worries we thought, “just how long can it take two guys to filet 90 perch”? Good grief, let me tell you that’s a decision I won’t make again without some major changes. A lot of our fish were small, less than 8 inches. Next time we go, I will definitely be more selective in what size goes into the cooler and what size get to grow some more.

All in all, if your thinking about going to catch some Perch, this seems to be as good a season as advertised. It was very relaxing and fairly steady catch, although our sizes were on the small end. The water temps were around 76-78 and we fished in 22-24 FOW.

Jeff

2 of us went out Sunday morning from West side of Catawba. We were in the first 25 boats with Lines in water just before 8am and finished limits at 11am. Took us 40 minutes to get the last half dozen. The bite changed for us right after he sent his wife a text for more time to catch our limit. Go figure. By the time we left, it looked like 300 boats stretching to halfway between SBI and Catawba. Beautiful day to be out.

We were about a mile and quarter S of west corner of Green Island. Depth of 31 fow. Crappie rigs clearly desired over spreaders. We only had large shiners so we were cutting them up. Early on into halfs about 1.25 inches long. When we were half done, we cut them even smaller. The last hour I was cutting my fish into fifths and using 2 pieces each hook. The perch were steeling the first piece and when they came back for the second, I got them.

They weighed 23 pounds at cleaners.

Tight lines,

Rickerd

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John and I fished Sunday north of Kellies.Was a tough bite for us. Fished for 6hrs and only managed 8 fish that weighed 17lbs.Biggest was 23″ and got a 12″yellow perch too. Program that worked for us was the same as last week, when we fished near the weather Bouy. Had 4 dipseys out at 3/80 and 85 with double willow gold blades and 1 setting at 65 and 60 with J7. The dipseys caught all our keepers except one on a crank. Had 2 inline boards out the whole time with an assortment of cranks and leads and only managed one keeper, Speed was 2.1-2.5mph.

We headed NE out of Vermillion to fish the deeper water for Walleye. We went to where we were catching large numbers last week in 45 ft of water. There were still good marks but they were scattered.

We worked hard for 6 hours for only 6 keepers but they were all solid 20+
We sorted through several shorts, no trash. We didn’t have a solid program but the best we found was spoons in blue silver down 35 at 2.7mph on the Hawk.

We did pickup a solid 4 lb Steelhead that helped the guests have a good time.

We fished South of the pack that was South of Green Island. Four of us ended up with 110 perch before we ran out of time. I was hoping we would limit out in time but I’m never going to complain about catching that many perch. Everyone was using crappie rigs with full emerald shiners. We had to do very little sorting, most perch were in the 8-9” range with a decent amount being 9.5-10”.

We will be fishing for perch out of Port Clinton next week and was where is the best place to get the fish cleaned and what is the going rate to clean them?

Our Walleye guests that are scheduled for tomorrow came in this afternoon and wanted to try perching.
We took them East of S Bass in 24 ft of water and they caught their 60 in less than 2 hours. Size was not that great with most 6 to 8 with a few bigger.
We caught on small emerald chunks on crappie rigs and fly rigs in green. What was notable is we did not catch anything on purple, that was hot yesterday.

So yesterday we got 90 around the lighthouse. A few nice fish, 10″+ and 1 about 12″. But mostly 8″-9″ and 1 or 2 gut hooked drinks. Overall I thought the grade was a little ho hum. Was 25# at the cleaner. They thought we did real well. Of course they’re not going to say you guys suck. That is 8.3# per limit. I recall a real nice day a few years and 2 limits were 22# or 11#/limit. So what’s your average limit weight and what’s a good one. Do you weigh your own? I clean 90% of my own and had a scale to weigh them long ago but it died. Need a new one.

Daughter and I both got our limit before 9am straight out of Fenwick in 23 fow. N41.67516, W083.13626. Marked some specs on bottom there and anchored and never moved.
We used 8# mono on cheap rods. 1 oz weights. Spreader with no bling and snells with #6 gold aberdeens. Emerald shiners from A&J.
Lots of doubles. Only two “white perch” or whatever those things are. We sorted until we ran out of bait around 10am. The bite was still strong when we left. By the time we left there were 50 other boats there. Very enjoyable morning.
I will say that we caught some of our biggest perch on just left over pieces of minnows. Eg., just a mutilated head, or a mutilated body with no head. Maybe this was an exceptional bite, but I don’t see how it matters what kind of shiner you use. There was no way to tell these were emerald pieces versus any other variety.

My first perch trip ever yesterday was enjoyable and we limited out quickly. However, our biggest perch was only 10″. Most were 8″ and we threw back many smaller than that. They’re tasty but it’s a lot of work cleaning those things for two bites per fish. And I’d prefer not to use up my bait on those little ones.
How do you target bigger perch?