Yellow Perch

[Neil McCauley]

Any advice on catching Yellow Perch?

I have not had great success with them, but know my lake is full of them- a couple years ago, two guys ice fishing were busted for poaching (exceeding their limit bigtime...between the two of them they had over 400 perch! Shameful, but impressive)

Anyway, they are plentiful, they are low on the food chain, and they are tasty. What are your go-to lures, methods, and type locations for each particular season?

 

[badhatharry]

Really pretty simple.....stick a nightcrawler on a hook 16" or so under a decent sized split shot and put it on the bottom somewhere near a weedbed.  After you catch a few, fillet strip off one of the smaller ones and use the strip in place of the worm.  They are carnivorous little turds.   Good luck

[Lund Explorer]

Any advice on catching Yellow Perch?

I have not had great success with them, but know my lake is full of them- a couple years ago, two guys ice fishing were busted for poaching (exceeding their limit bigtime...between the two of them they had over 400 perch! Shameful, but impressive)

Anyway, they are plentiful, they are low on the food chain, and they are tasty. What are your go-to lures, methods, and type locations for each particular season?

 

 

My two best tactics when targeting perch are drift fishing with simple "Crappie Rigs" http://www.basspro.com/Bass-Pro-Shops-Crappie-Rig/product/1776/  baited with some type of live or processed bait.  The other is to anchor down on known locations and pound them with a combination of Crappie Rigs and small spoons like the Hali Jig, Swedish Pimples, or Jigging Raps. 

 

I use a lot of different baits on my crappie rigs.  Live minnows, salted minnows, mayfly larva (wigglers), worms/crawler chunks, cut bait (as stated above) and 1" Gulp minnows all work well at times so you may want to have a few choices available for each trip.  I'll tip spoons with a minnow head or piece of cut bait as well.

 

Nothing better than a cooler full of convicts when you're looking for a fish dinner!

[Neil McCauley]

Great bait/lure advice. What depths are perch typically at in late summer into early fall? Will they go below the thermocline?

[FinCulture]

Really pretty simple.....stick a nightcrawler on a hook 16" or so under a decent sized split shot and put it on the bottom somewhere near a weedbed.  After you catch a few, fillet strip off one of the smaller ones and use the strip in place of the worm.  They are carnivorous little turds.   Good luck

yep.

[Catch 22]

I seldom try them in the summer. Winter and spring is my time.

 

1/16 to 1.8 oz hair jigs /avocado/w spritz of orange on the bottom. 

 

1-1/2" split tail grubs ==beetle spin like

 

Discovered this last winter= Cut the Utail off a Zoom worm to about 1-1/2" add a small jig head

 

My favorite  would be an LC 65 jerk.They hit as hard as most winter bass do

 

C22

[MassBass]

catch em ice fishing. You get biggins thru the ice. 

[Lund Explorer]

Great bait/lure advice. What depths are perch typically at in late summer into early fall? Will they go below the thermocline?

 

I've never caught anything "below" the thermocline.  What depth you find perch at is going to be dependent on where their food source is.  It could be anywhere between shallow weeds all the way out into 25'+ and it can change day to day or week to week.

 

I've always found the best way to located active schools is to drift across varying depths until I find them.  This is where a GPS unit can come in very handy.  You can mark the start of each drift and put in waypoint each time you catch a decent fish.  The boat track will also give you an idea of direction and length of each drift.  If a drift produced a few fish, you can repeat it by returning to your previous starting point.   If a certain drift doesn't produce you can move to a new starting point.  Once you've done this a few times you should determine the depth they're staging at and possibly find areas that are worth anchoring down on.

[DogBone_384]

1/8 oz in line spinners, like Mepps, that have fur/feathers in the treble hook.  I also catch them with small Rapalas that look, well, like Yellow Perch.  They're a trip to catch.  

 

For example: 

[FinCulture]

1/8 oz in line spinners, like Mepps, that have fur/feathers in the treble hook.  I also catch them with small Rapalas that look, well, like Yellow Perch.  They're a trip to catch.  

 

For example: IMG_4529.JPG

hawg!

[ww2farmer]

In open water, you can't beat a scaled down version of a drop shot rig. See perch on graph, drop to them, reel in perch repeat. The best bait I have found has been a 1" Gulp minnow nose hooked on a #8 VMC spinshot hook, about 15" above a 1/4 oz. drop shot weight. If your around bigger perch, up-size to a 2" minnow and #6 hook. Through the ice, once you have found them and are marking them on the graph/flasher. Use a small, but heavy (I like tungsten) ice jig. Tip it with the same 1" gulp minnow. Let it hit the bottom, and then "pound" it on the bottom to stir up silt/etc....you will get a few to bite just doing this, but more often than not, the pounding of the jig on the bottom just draws them in for a look. Once the screen is showing fish around the jig, rip it up FAST like it's trying to get away from them, More often than not they will chase it up and grab it. I have had them come from 30 feet down off the bottom to within 10' of the surface to grab it. When the action slows, or the fish vanish from the screen move 10 yards in any direction, drilling holes till you find them again, and repeat.