Fishing Forum

Decided to do some camping this weekend, and hit Deer Creek while I was in the area. The first day was pretty steady with 30 or so smallies being caught between the both of us. All fish were small averaging 9'' with the biggest being only 13''. We fished near the island, and across the way on the side of the railroad tracks.
The second day we decided to fish in wallsburg bay. The fishing here wasn't hardly what it was on the other side, only managed about 10 smallies. They were all small too.
Has anybody caught any decent smallies out of Deer Creek this year? I swear in past years I would catch fish up to 17'', but no biguns this year. It seems there aren't very many perch in there either, Tried crawler for a bit and only managed smallmouth. Kept a limit for the grill, hope we can thin out some of these smaller ones to leave some more food for the big ones.
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I think that the perch have nowhere to hide the last couple of years, with so little vegetation cover that they need to survive with the low water. The perch population has definitely crashed. When the water comes back up the perch will return in full force too.

I haven't caught any big smallies but caught a couple niced sized largemouths off the island back in May.
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Sadly, that has also been my experience this year at D.C. Fair numbers of small fish. I agree that harvesting a few might be a good idea there. I haven't caught a perch there through the ice or this summer once and I have gone several times.
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