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For all you perch disciples I have a confession to make....In the last year I have had perch envy. The first time it attacked me was when I looked at duck slayers pictures of those giant sloths he has been getting on Cascade. My jaw dropped so hard on the table when I saw those pictures that the bruise didn't heel up for a week. The second time I became full of perch envy was when I saw the finned pigs that idahopanfish was catching at CJ Strike. You guys on the other side of the state have some awesome fisheries for perch. But I no longer hang my head in shame. This afternoon I hit Ririe reservoir and in a couple of hours caught some of the nicest perch I have ever caught on this side of the state. They may not quite have the shoulders that you have over there, but I think we might be catching up. My biggest was 11 and a quarter inches, I had thirteen that went over ten. All in all I am looking forward to an awesome fish fry. Here are a couple of pictures.
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Very Nice!
Idaho
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Agreed!!! Definitely has got me wanting to hit Ririe for some perch action. Great Job Taz!
Paul
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Awesome Job! Makes me really want to get over and fish Ririe! Did you have any special trick to land those beauties? Thnaks for the great pic's.
A favor and reminder for all of us. We need to remember to resize our pictures. My system not too old, ha ha 5 years is old now for a computer, but the bigger ones still take a while to load up.
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I missed the resizing trick on the pictures. Can you teach me? As for what I use on Ririe it is pretty simple. I use my ice fishing gear. Little ultra sensitive three foot rod, large Swedish pimple with single hook and half inch of crawler. The vexilar helps too.
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WOW . Nice perch .I wish I knew how to catch them through the ice like that up there .
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Problem is that they don't let us fish enough of the lake to get into the really good areas for perch fishing in the winter.
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I agree , 1 mile up from the dam .
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That's a nice mess of perch! I'll have to admit that I have limited knowledge about icefishing gear. I had to look up what a Swedish pimple was lol. So obviously you were fishing open water at the time. If you don't mind me asking, what technique were you using with the spoon? Just jigging it off the bottom?
I was pretty sure I knew what a Vexilar was, but I looked that up too. I found a very interesting product that they are coming out with. It is called the Vexilar Smartphone Sonar System. Sounds like a cool little set up.
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I use a vexilar fl-20 fish finder. I drop that Swedish pimple down to the bottom and reel up a couple of cranks and jig it. I have found that in the mornings they will hit very little jig, and in the afternoons I have to change it up to get their interest. What is cool about the vex is I can not only see my jig but can tell if the presentation is stirring them up or not, so I will use different types of jigging motions.
Happy fishing.
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You are making me so hungry .
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That's playing dirty, all I had for dinner was fresh elk steak. I would have surely swapped you out for a little surf & turf had I seen this earlier.
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Incredible fish Tazo! Hopefully our schedules can line up to get out some time. You aren't heading up Monday are you? Anyway, one other method I've used on these spiny buggers the last few years is an ultralight rod with a 1/8 oz jig with a piece of worm on it. I like to cast it towards shore and work it back to the boat keeping it on bottom, or close to the entire time. If I don't get hit by the time it's vertical I make sure to drop it to the bottom, reel up half a crank and let it sit for about a minute, maybe jig it a a little. I'll try this several casts in a spot then move the boat 30-50 feet and try again. Usually do ok if they're active. The vex would be a ton of help though! Taz are you using the vex with an open water sensor or just drop the winter puck over the side? does it even work that way?
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I think my jaw just dropped on the table hard. I haven't seen a nice perch out of any lakes in Utah since last summer. Those are some nice pigs for a amazing perch taco festival. [cool]
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Just using the winter puck. With the boats moving around you get a washing machine movement on the bottom of your finder, but as it got later in the afternoon boats cleared out and lake stilled up it worked like a charm, had to turn the gain way up to pick up my jig though, hardly have to even turn gain at all through ice. I made three other stops before I got on a single perch. It was kind of funny, I would catch perch then those stinking chubs would move in and chase them out. As soon as they left back in those big ones would come. I did toss back a dozen or so smaller ones also.
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Went out on Fiday to try to duplicate what you had done... Not as fruitful of a day but ended up bringing home nine of em. Got a handfull of smallish smallies and a trout that were turned loose as well as the biggest friggin crayfish I have ever seen... If I didn't know any better I would have thought it was a lobster!
Beautiful evening on the water!
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