Montpelier on Mon

[trueblue2]

wife and I will try Montpelier for some perch for the first time on Monday. If anyone would be willing to share suggestions on locations, depth, etc. we would sure appreciate it. Any information on the road would be helpful too. We have not been there before.

Thanks in advance.
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[acpchuck]

Road in is kept plowed so you should be good to go for access. Drive in until you come to an area plowed out pretty wide. There is a boat ramp (under the snow somewhere) that makes getting to the ice pretty easy.

When I have fished there, I have just gone straight out, about half way across the lake. Generally use a small jig with a small chunk of worm or just the worm. Fish 1 to 2 feet off the bottom. If it is kind of slow fishing move about 30 to 40 feet and try there. Sometimes just a short move can make a difference with perch.
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[gmwahl]

Ditto on apchucks advice. We've been doing very well for perch straight east of the big parking lot and from the middle of the lake clear over to the east side of the lake just out from shore. I wouldn't venture too far north of the parking lot for the perch, but from the parking lot towards the dam for a couple hundred yards or so and more towards the east side should get you into fish.
If you want to try for trout too, then put a rod down about 10-15' under the ice and let it soak a bait while you have fun with the perch.
Good luck.
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[trueblue2]

Thank you so much!. Looking forward to it. Always fun to catch trout, but we will release all those. Any size to the perch? What water depth am I looking for? How much snow cover?

Just returned from FishLake (ut). Lots of perch there, but our largest was only 8 inches.

Again, many thanks.
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[dratharman]

I too went to fish lake and I have fished montpellier last year and I must say the perch are about the same size if not smaller than fish lake. I target the kobe in montpellier Not huge but more like the 10 to 12 inch size I catch them just south east of the ramp no special spot just away from others and a small ice fly with a wax worm and suspended above the perch zone seems to do the trick for me good luck
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[gmwahl]

Any depth over 15-20' has been working for me, but the zone is within a foot of the bottom. There are weeds down there so the "bottom" is really just above the weeds. I usually let my line drop until slack and then reel in just to the point where the slack is gone and go a turn and a half again and call it good, should be in the perch zone there.
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[OvidCreek]

Perch fishing was insane last Saturday, thank goodness because the cisco disco was a complete bust[mad] My son and I iced 140+ in three hours. We fished deep in 40+ on the far side. The bottom is full of them and they are mostly in the 7-8 inch range. We only iced one trout. You probably will catch all you want, like everyone said move if you are not in them after 10 minutes. No sense of setting up your other poles if you are just going for perch.

Best of Luck,

OvidCreek
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[buckhunterhart]

I found the secret bait from a week ago Saturday was sticking a perch eye on a glo jig. Caught a fish every time, until we ran out of eyes. Fortunately a previous fisherman had left a dozen perch on the ice to feed the birds, so they had us going for quite some time. Too bad they are not of a larger variety up there.
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[ridcbr]

How did you do how was the ice ? Pm if you like
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[trueblue2]

Sorry to say we canceled out. Didn't realize the perch were in the 6" range. Was hoping for some bigger ones. Went to Mantua instead. Got a few nice perch there, but it was the softest bite I've experienced.
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[ridcbr]

Has anybody been down there lately what was the ice conditions?
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