[cool][#0000ff]So far this winter I have only heard of a few dink perch and no walleyes coming out of Starvation. Some pretty savvy Starvation anglers have taken their best shots and have seemingly been unable to find or catch many fish.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]WHAZZUPWIDDAT?[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I just got an email from a very good angler (non BFT) who fished Starvation this last weekend. Here' his report.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]"[/#0000ff][#000000]Made some swiss cheese out of the ice at Starvation. I tried an area near the bridge, that I had been told was an area that had produced some Perch. After many holes in various depths, structure regions and moving around, we had no success or even any indication of fish on the finder or any evidence around old holes of any fish except one large chub. [/#000000]
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[#000000]After a good while of prospecting, a guy on a snowmobile well equipped with Gas auger, Fishfinder, Underwater camera and all other appropriate technology came up to us to inquire if we had them figured out. We talked for a while and it was clear he knew what the program should be. He said he has just about emptied his gas auger looking for Perch on a couple of trips there wihout
ever locating any. He has had success in the Summer months and knows the lake. said he couldn't figure them out under the ice and had not talked to anybody that had and hoped we would have something figured. [/#000000]
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[#000000]So after a few hours of that and with his experiences we decided to switch gears and pursue the elusive Cottontail Rabbit and we got 20 and headed home."[/#000000]
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Kind of strange considering the nice mess o perch you were nailing there in the summer. I had thought that Starvation might be THEE place for perchies this winter....[crazy]
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[cool]Thanks for the update, TD. Man, that lake sure is strange this year in comparison to past years reports, and even the ones from last fall and summer.
I hope the fish are still there, just hunkered down in a secret (to the fish) area. I believe it was you who said something like 90% of the fish are only in 10% of the lake (or something like that...) After reading your reports this past fall, I had plans to make sure not to miss that lake this year with my new free time, but now...I'll just have to wait for a softwater report from you or of the few others on this board that fish it...[crazy]
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[cool][#0000ff]Starvation is one of those lakes that has different personalities in different seasons. It used to be more popular for ice fishing than for open water...before the perch came to town. You would think they would be pushovers, considering how they act in other perch ponds. But, there are more than a few summertime Starvation pros that leave the lake scratchin' their heads in the winter.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I'm sure that if the lake was as close as some of our other perch habitats that someone would eventually get a better handle on them and we could develop some reliable spots. If you think about it, even the lakes we DO catch perch have their little eccentricities. The fish are usually not scattered around the whole lake and willing biters everywhere. But, when the lakes are close enough for bajillions of perchaholics to work them over, in time we figure them out better.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I know a few guys who claim to KNOW where and how to catch big perch through the ice...but so far it is all talk and no action from them too.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Bring on the soft water and put me in my tube. I can find 'em good in the warmer water.[/#0000ff]
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TD: Now you've done it - basically thrown down the gauntlet.
Before accepting the where's waldo challenge, I've got to ask, how thick is the ice? That would be a long way to drive to have to manually cut holes in a mission to solve the puzzle, but manual is all I've got.
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[cool][#0000ff]Definitely not hand auger ice...up to 14" according to some reports.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I don't know if you caught the comment made by my fishing buddy that one guy had just about ran out of gas in his power auger...drilling exploratory holes with no success.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]We should have planned an assault...starting a couple of weeks ago. There needs to be a planned campaign, with several groups, each with wheelers or snowmobiles. Each group will have some assigned areas and will GPS likely looking underwater structure, etc. At the end of the first day, we will compare notes and if the fish seem to be more prevalent in one part of the lake, then everybody blitzes that area the next day. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I used to do some gold prospecting in California and that was how you found the mother lode. You keep looking for "color" and following it upstream until you find the vein of gold (perch) where you get rich.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]If nothing else, having an organized and systematic campaign will help eliminate non-productive water. You can't catch them where they ain't. By process of elimination you soon avoid the zero spots to find and focus on the good ones.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]A newbie wanting to hit Jordanelle today would have a real challenge...without someone to tell them where to go, how deep to fish and what to use. Same for Starvation. It is still a "Survivor" show.[/#0000ff]
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ONE OF MY BEST FREINDS HAS FISHED EVERY WEEK FOR 3 WEEKS. AND HAS SOME SPOTY SUCCES. HIS BEST REPORT CAME AT FIRST ICE. RIGHT BY THE BRIDGE. BUT IT HAS DIED SINCE. EVEN THE EYES ARE NOT SHOWING IN THEIR TIPPICAL PLACES. SO WHO KNOWS. SURE NOT ME. HE HAS BE GETTING SOME GOOD BROWN FROM THE DAM. SEVRAL 28 INCHERS OVER THAT 3 WEEKS.
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Hmmmm, that boggles the ol' brain bucket. There were schools of perch in the shallows in the fall. It looked like something off the Discovery channel, hundreds of fish all swimming together. I wonder where they are?
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[cool][#0000ff]Well, if we can't find any during warmer times in the summer we can only assume they were gathering for the alien spaceship to beam them up.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Another possibility was that they were simply herding baby perch into the shallows and feeding on them. They used to do that same thing in Deer Creek. You could walk the shoreline, casting a small tube or twister into a couple of feet of water and get instant big perch.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]They were also doing that at Yuba this fall. Instead of getting rainbows chasing fathead minnows all I could get were bajillions of perch...and every one was barfing up baby perch.[/#0000ff]
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TD you may be onto something there. If the perch aren't super deep, they may very well be up herding the baitfish, but it may be just a little early.
There is a fair amount of flooded brush in Starvation for baitfish to hide and even the beach area's gradually deepening sands could be a possibility. Perch will often stage in those sandy areas before spawn. I found that at Rockport a few years ago when newly flooded areas near the river were crawling with large pre-spawn perch. This area was less than 6 feet deep and just off the river channel. That was a good day.
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[cool][#0000ff]Yeah, the prespawn thing is a definite possibility. Perch spawn the earliest of just about any of our favorite fishies and the last ones I caught at Pineview were bursting with eggs. I have heard that they will actually spawn under the ice when they can find suitable structure and the time is right. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Perch are not "free-spawners". They like vegetation or stickups for depositing their eggs and providing cover for the yonng. There are some weed beds in Rabbit Gulch that I know about, and I am sure there are other weed beds around the lake that the perch would find just dandy for a nursery.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Everybody might just be fishing too deep.[/#0000ff]
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I have caught perch later in the ice season at Jordanelle in 2 or 3 feet of water. I could just drop my line down the hole and lift them up on the ice one after another without touching my reel.
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This can't be good news at all... We need to catch more perch to balance out the walleyes. If nobody is catching them then can you imagine the explosion of many more perch when soft water comes around. Those damned perch take my crawler harness with a bottom bouncer every time last time I was at Starvation last October!
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[cool][#0000ff]I hear ya Paul. They also go through the minnows pretty fast. We caught a couple of perch that were not much bigger than the minnows they munched on.[/#0000ff]
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