Mantua Report

[fairwayphilly]

Took the toon to Mantua last night. Got on the water a little after 4:00 and started busting 5" perch as soon as the first jig hit the water. Played around in the shallows on the south end for a while until I had enough perch to replenish my kitty bait supply and hadn't picked up a single gill yet. Moved out a couple of hundred yards off shore and finally found a sharp drop off to some deeper water. Had to switch to a drop shot rig to fish the gill which were holding in 18' of water. Catching was pretty consistent, but had to be careful with the depth; too deep and it was nothing but moss, too shallow and all the fish were the size of a silver dollar. Had to be within a foot or two of the bottom to pick up the bigger ones. No fish that I would call a slab, larger ones were in the 7-8" catagory. Do the gills run any bigger that that in Mantua?
I was off the water by 8:30, water temp was 73*, and the fish didn't really seem to care about color. I was tipping with a little perch meat. Kept a dozen or so gills, just enough to fry up a little fish nugget appetizer. A little more W than I like, but not too much to handle.
[signature]

[wiperhunter2]

Thanks for the report, sounds like a fun way to spend the evening. I don't fish Mantua much but from others that do and have posted their reports, I would say that the gills can get up to a foot or more. If you can find the right spot you should be able to catch 10 incher fairly easy. WH2
[signature]

[PDS]

I believe the perch meat helps with the bigger fish. I tried both worms and the meat simultaneously, my boys with the worms and myself with the meat, and found that the bigger fish liked the meat. Bigger jigs also helped in the that category. 1/16 oz jigs and they were still getting it all the way into their throats. We ended up using the meat exclusively and our catches increased in size. You don't have to rebait very often with the meat, especially if you leave a little skin on it. You are also right that the bigger ones held deeper, under the dinks that would come right up to the boat. Our bigger ones also averaged the same size as the ones you caught.
[signature]