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The vast majority of the successful perch anglers fish from boats during the open water season for two important reasons; fish location and fisherman mobility. Perch are found mostly in deeper water during much of the year, and as a result they are difficult to locate without a boat. In addition a major key for successful perch fishing is mobility, and a boat provides an easy means of seeking out fish by trying different locations.

Shore or dock fishing is good at times, particularly during spring and early summer. Perch congregate around bottom structures, such as rock piles, reefs, along the lee side of land points, beds of submergent aquatic vegetation, and bottom drop-offs. In late spring and early summer they are often found in water 10 to 20 feet deep, still near the bottom. One technique often used to locate perch during this time is to drift or troll until a school is located, then anchor and still fish or cast.

Yellow Perch Tackle

Perch fishing does not require an extensive nor expensive array of fishing tackle or gear. For open water fishing, most anglers use basic rod-reel combinations, although light tackle is the most popular. The type and quality of the rod is largely a matter of personal preference. For trolling or drift fishing, a somewhat stiffer rod of 6 to 6 1/2 feet in length with a medium to fast tip is one of the better choices. For jig fishing or casting, lighter rods, 5 to 5 1/2 feet in length, are preferable.

Perch are notorious bait robbers, and a fast action rod tip is superior for detecting subtle bites. Fly rods remain the mainstay of some perch fishermen, although their popularity has declined with the advent of light spinning and spin-casting rods.

Reels, like rods, come in a wide variety of styles, brands and sizes. Choose the one that fits your needs best. Open and closed-face spinning reels, in ultra-light or medium sizes are the most common and are satisfactory for most perch fishing. There is an exception to this choice: if the reel is used extensively for casting small lures, the better quality reel is superior in performance and durability.

Monofilament line should be your choice for perch fishing. As a rule of thumb, use the lightest line possible for the type of fishing you are doing. Lighter lines allow for the sensitive touch or feel, which is particularly useful when perch bite softly. For trolling or drift fishing, 4 to 8 pound-test line, depending upon lure size, is adequate. For still fishing or casting, 4 to 6 pound-test line is preferred by many perch fishermen, and 2 pound-test line is the choice with the smallest lures.

Most perch fishermen switch to short ice fishing rods in winter. These rods, no more than 3 feet in length, come in two basic styles; those fitted with a standard reel and the other with a short piece of fiberglass rod and a handle with pegs for wrapping the line. Tip-ups are also used by many fishermen during the winter season. Depending upon angler experience and the type of tackle used, heavier test line is better for ice fishing. Lighter lines allow a more sensitive touch, but at the same time they may weaken or break after being abraded by rough ice or frozen in the rod guides.

Yellow Perch Lures
For those anglers that prefer to fish for perch with artificial lures, the choice is as varied as it is with any fishing. Lures that are commonly used for perch include many of the same type used for the other panfishes. Small lures are best because perch have relatively small mouths and show little interest in a lure that is too large.

One of the most popular types is a leadhead. These lures are made in an infinite variety of sizes and colors, but the one sixty-fourth and one thirty-second ounce sizes are most popular. Leadheads have a number of different names, depending upon whether they are tied with feathers, hair, skirted with a plastic lure, or chenille wrapped. Of this group, the skirted leadhead, often called a mini-jig, is one of the most effective. Skirts for leadheads are made of soft plastic and threaded directly through the hook, so the hook shank is completely covered. Yellow, white, and a combination yellow-white skirts seem to be the most effective in our natural lakes. However, no perch fisherman can guarantee these will catch fish since they can be very particular about which lure they strike, and at almost any time might choose a lure with a red-white, purple, green, or some other colored skirt. A Minnesota tear drop is one of the favorite lures used during the open water season. It is made in a variety of colors, but silver, orange, and chartreuse seem to work best. These small lures are generally still fished or casted.

For trolling or drift fishing, heavier leadheads up to one-eighth ounce are best, although slip-sinker lures or a small spinner rig, are becoming more common. Floating jigheads are excellent lures either with a slip-sinker rig or with a fixed sinker or three-way bottom walker set-up. The advantage of using a floating lure arrangement is that by changing line length between the weight and lure, the lure can be set to suspend at various distances above the bottom. Consequently, the lure will not snag on rocks or vegetation as easily.

During autumn and throughout the winter small, metal jigging spoons, in one thirty-second or one-eighth ounce size, are the choice of many anglers. For ease in baiting and handling fish the treble hook is usually replaced with a single, 6 or 8 sized long or short shanked hook. A simple method of converting to a single hook is to cut two barbs from the treble hook. Drop hooks, which are made by tying a short piece of line between the hook and lure on these spoons, can sometimes help trigger some action. Lures are generally tied directly to the line, except when using slip-sinkers or bottom-walkers since the objective is to present the "right" size bait to the perch.

When anglers fish in or around submerged vegetation, or while they are dock or shore fishing, bobbers or slip-bobbers are useful for keeping the bait in the proper position. Perch are known for their ability to strip bait from a hook without pulling the bobber under or otherwise indicating there is a bite, so a small bobber is recommended.

Yellow Perch Bait click here to catch your own bait

Live bait is one of the stand-bys for perch fishing. The type of bait, like the type of lure, depends mostly on personal preference, although fishing style, fisherman experience, and season often deserve close consideration. Two effective and popular year-round live baits are small minnows and insect larvae. Minnows are the favorite bait while trolling or drift fishing with spinner rigs and three-way rigs using leadheads or other jigheads. Small minnows are also effective while still fishing in late autumn and winter. Nightcrawlers and small fish worms, although not as popular with anglers as minnows, are also effective at times while drift fishing or trolling, and they are usually rigged with a stinger or trailer hook. Insect larvae, mainly silver wigglers or maggots, are the most widely used bait in the natural lakes for perch.

Several other types of baits are also used by fishermen during certain periods, although they are not as well known. These include wax worms, mousees and a variety of grubs. All of these baits have the advantage of long shelf life compared to wigglers, which need to be stored where it is cool. Crayfish meat is an excellent perch bait, particularly during the mid- and late summer months. The meat is extracted by splitting the tail and rolling the flesh out with the thumb. Perch eyes are a standard bait and are used primarily in autumn and winter. The disadvantage of the cut baits is that they are often unavailable. The best way to assure a reliable supply is to freeze small quantities in individual plastic bags. For perch eyes, freeze 6 or 8 along the bottom of a plastic bag like a string of beads. This way individual eyes can be taken out without having to thaw an entire package.

Yellow Perch Tips and Techniques
The most important part of becoming a successful perch angler is to learn to adjust and be flexible to different techniques, constantly vary the way in which the bait is presented until you catch perch, and become knowledgeable in perch behavior and location during different seasons of the year. Luckily, perch are less affected by changing weather patterns than most fish species, and they are often found in the same locations before and after changes in the weather. In spite of the type of lure, bait, or type of gear, success is often a matter of how well the bait is presented to the fish. Perch orient toward the bottom, and for any bait or lure to be effective it is essential that it is fished on or near the bottom. When perch are located, fishing may be slow at first, but most often action is fast and furious as schools of perch move through while feeding. When this happens, land each fish as quickly as possible and put the bait back down, because the next perch is waiting to strike. A strike may occur as the bait drops, but most often it occurs just as the bait is lifted off the bottom -- so be ready.

When fishing is slow, vary your techniques before moving to another spot, and be willing to try almost any trick. For example, if jigging produced good fishing and it suddenly slows, try casting in a circle around the boat. Remember to let the bait hit bottom before reeling in. If a strike occurs -- land the fish slowly. The flashing actiion of the fighting fish appears to draw other perch back into the vicinity. As action increases, land fish more quickly and get the bait back down.

Some methods for trying to trigger perch to bite seem to go against traditional fishing methods. When fishing in shallow water for instance, swishing a rod back and forth in the water will often attract perch and trigger some action. Running the boat motor, even while anchored, also can have some positive results, with the noise appearing to attract perch. Some anglers tie brightly colored flags to their anchor ropes to attract perch. If there's still no action after 15 or 20 minutes, move to a different location and try again. Perch usually need no invitation to bite, and once located they will provide plenty of fast action like few other fish.

Yellow perch fishing this week on western Lake Erie wasn’t quite Christmas in July in terms of gifts, but only because it was neither July nor Christmas.

It was, however, a case of using ice-fishing gear in summer to catch perch, at least for veteran angler Tommy Frisch, of North Toledo. “See those marks there?” Frisch said, pointing to the colored hash-marks flickering at the “bottom” of the circular flashing ring of his Vexilar fish-finder. “Those are fish. Lots of ’em.” Mostly yellow perch, too.

Frisch proceeded to hoist aboard a 9 or 10-inch perch on his teeny ice-fishing spinning outfit. He even uses a flashy little spoon on a dropper beneath a hand-tied mayfly imitation.

It is not quite the main perching season yet. The bigger jumbos, 10 to 13-inchers, haven’t schooled and swarmed. To do that it may take some cooling off of lake water, which still is running in the low to mid 70s.


 But a boatload of veterans found a mighty fine mess of 8 to 10-inchers Tuesday between Niagara Reef and Green Island in 27 to 28 feet of water.

We “got them going,” as they say in perching parlance, and were hauling in fish after fish on golden shiners when squirrelly weather — rain showers and highly variable but light wind — turned suddenly nasty. Too much lightning and then a strong southeast wind started to whip up the water and the light rain turned to heavy sheets. It was a quick unanimous vote that it was time to go in — now.

But by the time the boat was within a mile or so of Turtle Creek, the sun was out, the brief storm distant history. But the wind was strong offshore — the plume off the Davis-Besse stack was streaming below the rim, conjuring up the old western basin saw about the nuclear power plant’s cooling tower plume: “If it’s below the lip, cancel the trip.” Good advice for living to fish another day.

The crew included skipper Dan Tucker, piloting his 27-foot Erie Sport; Frisch, better known as the Turtle Man for his turtle trapping and rearing exploits; Bill Byersmith, a master tacklesmith and his son, John, and me

“If we had had another hour and a half of flat water [as we had earlier], we would have filled our limit,” Tucker said. No one was complaining, though, other than a certain outdoors editor grumbling a bit about his leaky rainsuit and how he’s been vowing to replace it for 18 months, every time he gets soaked.

In any case, get ready for a good perching season. Once it gets going you can catch perch into the fall until you don’t want to be out on a boat any more. Use whatever gear you are most comfortable with.

Tucker, for example, prefers a baitcasting rig with an in-line sinker, to which he attaches a snelled hook, sometimes one with beads and a small spinner blade for some flash. On the other hand, the classic side-by-side two-hook wire spreaders also work well, as do the stacked tandem “crappie” rigs, one hook above the other. The main thing is to have a live shiner, emerald or golden, attached on the business end.

Remember the daily creel limit is 30 fish. If you don’t find fish within 15 minutes of dropping anchor, move a little. Keep moving until you find fish — perch somehow tell their buddies, and pretty soon you can have constant action.

If the fish are running too small to keep, move. If the action drops off, move a little by letting out a little more anchor line. It’s a seek-and-find mission.

Along with your gear and a bucket of minnows, bring some stories. Perching is not the rocket science of angling. It is straight-forward minnow-dunking, about one crank off the bottom. It is about having a relaxed easy time. So be prepared to share tall tales, teasing, and reminiscing en route to icing down the butterfly-fillet fixings for the world’s finest fish fry.

 Elsewhere on western Lake Erie, walleye fishing has slowed but is still worth the effort for those boats getting out.

The Ohio Division of Wildlife recommends trying off the Toledo Harbor Light in 18 to 22 feet of water, near B-Can of the Camp Perry Firing Zone, and from Rattlesnake Island to F-Can on the Canadian line. Hybrid mayfly rigs, or Weapons, with gold blades are the choice of casters and trollers doing well with Jet Divers or Dipsy Divers and spoons, usually copper-backed.

A good grade of walleye can be caught by casting in the western basin this time of year, as evidenced by the results of last Sunday’s West Sister Charter Boat Association annual tournament.

The top team among 20, Not Too Unreal, turned in 10 fish weighing 31.82 pounds. Anglers included Dave Szostek, Tony Majewski, Bob Rutter, Jim Groth, and Bill Healy.

Second place went to the Aquaholic team skippered by Chuck Stange, at 29.64 pounds, and third went to Watch Witch, skippered by Jerry Meyers Sr., at 29.38 pounds.

The teams generally fished Weapons with gold blades in this casting-only event, said Rick Ferguson at Al Szuch Live Bait, the tournament headquarters.

On Lake Michigan’s salmon waters, skipper Lee Boyer reports that “fishing in Ludington is about as good as it gets.”

Boyer, the Fishing Farmer who plows for walleyes on Lake Erie’s Michigan side out of Luna Pier most of the summer, usually takes a break to run some salmon trips. Boats at Ludington have been taking limits of king salmon with a mix of steelhead trout and coho salmon, Boyer said, fishing in 60 to 100 feet north and south of Ludington.

Best baits have been Dreamweaver Spin Doctors with Strong Flies and Silver Horde plugs off lead-core line. On Tuesday Boyer took 25 fish by 10:30 a.m. The kings are running 12 to 18 pounds.


On area farm ponds, largemouth bass have been active, even in the hot spell. Ed Romp, of Monclova, and his 11-year-old grandson, Hunter Johnson, have been working over some Monclova area ponds and Hunter has logged bass of 19 and 20 inches.

Besides the ponds, Romp and company fish Delta and Swanton reservoirs and the Maumee River as well — “wherever we can find fish,” adds Romp.

Prospective farm pond anglers are reminded that private ponds are off limits unless you fish receive permission from the pond’s owner.

For the record, Joseph Bartlett, III, of Bowling Green, has posted another line-class record fish in the book of the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wis.

This time it was a 4-pound, 3-ounce hybrid saugeye of 26¾ inches length taken from Fostoria Reservoir No. 6 on July 26. It sets the record for the 16-pound-test line-class. For years Bartlett has been posting records in the Hall of Fame’s book by seeking out species and line-classes that he can reach from home — from the Maumee River to area impoundments.

For more information on the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame and its record program, call 715-634-4440, or visit on-line at www.freshwater-fishing.org.

Contact Steve Pollick at: spollick@theblade.com or 419-724-6068.












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