I took a friend to cabelas last night to purchase his first fishing license ever. He finally decided to come fishing with me and another friend. We decided make the long haul and to go to fish lake this Saturday morning due to the reported fast action of perch. I've only been to fish lake one other time and we got into some perch, but not an overload. Without giving away your secret honey hole, is there a better end of the lake to fish at for perch? Also, what has been the right depth for perch? Is there a lure or two that's killing it this year?
Thanks for the info in advance. I want to make sure to get my friend hooked on fishing and give him a good experience.
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I have never fished it through the ice and am heading down on Saturday also (it SR25 is open) But I have caught a ton or so perch out of there in the summer. Pretty much fine the weed line in about 10-15 feet of water and use small jigs tipped with waxie's. After you catch one you can cut him up into little strips and use them on the tips of small jigs. I have heard perch eye balls work well also, but i have never tried it. I am also taking some small iron with me like a Northland forage minnow in Green glow and then tipped with a sweetener of choice.
Pretty much if you go out about 20-30 yds off of most of the shore line you should be able to find perch unless you are on the East side and then it is more like 10 yds.
Good luck
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Thanks for the info! I just called the lodge and they said that highway 25 is open but 4 wheel drive is recommended. They said skies were clear currently, hopefully it holds up. I think I'm planning on hitting the south west end of the lake and try to find the weed line. I'll let you know how we do, thanks!
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the weeds down there go from the shore out to about 30 feet I would guess. Drill and use your sonar. or if you are hand drilling kind of look to see where other holes are. There are also holes in the fields of weeds in that lake. The seeds are not hard to find down there.
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We were down there for the perch tournament and it seemed like people who were out 20 feet of water didn't do that well.. Stick between 5-13 feet of water.. Some in our group fished 5 ft and killed them, others were in 13 ft and killed them.. They also were able to just sight fish that shallow.. A shrimpo or rat finkee did the trick for us tipped with a worm or meal worm.. Keep jigging later in the day, they seem to only take if jigging towards the afternoon and seem to be down in the weeds..
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I was in 11.2 FOW and caught just shy of 80 perch from 8:00 to 2:00 last saturday. Finding the weed line is not really what you're doing right now, it's more like you're finding breaks in the weeds. The hole I fished was right next to a chunk of weeds that was pretty much the same size and shape of a 7 foot tall Christmas tree. I would put a pink glow ice jig down and wiggle it lightly 6 inches from the bottom and catch one every couple minutes. When the action died down I put a pink and pearl 2-inch tube down and jigged it fairly agressively and they would school back up around the area, then the jig would go back down the hole and more perch would come up out of the hole with it.
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Anyone been to the lake since that big storm? I've got 4 wheel drive but no chains.
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Do you care to share the size of the perch being caught down there?
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When we was down there for the tournament, the average size of the perch were 5" to 7" with the bigger ones being 9" but few and far between. We fished Joe's Bush and walked straight out and caught fish from 11 FOW to 20 FOW. We used a combination of many colors and caught fish, my best was glow in the dark spoon and a white ice fly drop shot style. I tipped mine with night crawler, wax worms, meal worms, and perch eyes, didn't seem to matter.
Good luck and have fun.
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Fish Lake perch are small to tiny but about half of them are big enough to filet and the rest make good bait to freeze and use the rest of the year. The biggest you will get are 5-7 inches and that will be about half of your catch with the rest being much smaller. But we may as well have our fun before the DWR decides to take drastic measure.
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[quote Jedidiah]
But we may as well have our fun before the DWR decides to take drastic measure.
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I seriously doubt there is any danger of that.
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We could only hope. If only there was a way to eradicate the pesky little scourge.
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We ended up fishing on the on the south end of the lake in about 17 feet of water. Fishing was as hot as it could get with perch. One of my friends that was with me ended up catching a tagged perch on his first fish of the day! Luckily he was registered and won a rod holder that mounts to the wall. I attached a picture of the tagged fish. We caught about 8 trout, 3 of which were Splake. We caught them on perch rattlers tipping them with meal worms. We had a great time and my friend from California is hooked on fishing now! Thanks for all of your help and advise.
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Glad to hear you did well. We went up to mid lake and did not do very well, ended the day with 1 rainbow. I noticed there were still a lot of people down at that end when we left at 3. Not many back up at the North or mid lake area when we left.
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