01-06-2010, 06:22 AM
[cool]Nice job on those slimers today! It sounds like the trout fishery there has actually gotten better the past couple of years while the perch fishery has declined.
The perch population reportedly somewhat crashed during the winter of '05-06 with thousands of dead perch reported along the shorlines at ice-off. There are still decent amounts of perch there, but they don't have to compete as much for food as they did pre-crash, so they are well fed right now and aren't very interested in jigs tipped with bait. I've marked them on my fish finder the past couple of years in my favorite spots on the West side, but they all had lock-jaw... I'm no biologist, but it's my opinion that they need to have a couple more years of big successful spawns for there to be more fish competing for the perch food on the bottom before they will start hitting the jigs again. Hope I am wrong and it picks up sooner than that... In the meantime, enjoy the slimer fishing...
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The perch population reportedly somewhat crashed during the winter of '05-06 with thousands of dead perch reported along the shorlines at ice-off. There are still decent amounts of perch there, but they don't have to compete as much for food as they did pre-crash, so they are well fed right now and aren't very interested in jigs tipped with bait. I've marked them on my fish finder the past couple of years in my favorite spots on the West side, but they all had lock-jaw... I'm no biologist, but it's my opinion that they need to have a couple more years of big successful spawns for there to be more fish competing for the perch food on the bottom before they will start hitting the jigs again. Hope I am wrong and it picks up sooner than that... In the meantime, enjoy the slimer fishing...
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