First time Perch fishing August 11th

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