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Fly Tying
Tim Shovel

Yellow Perch

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My local lake is packed with perch, and not all of them are small, a few years ago a 2.35 pound perch was pulled out. I just wanted to know if anyone had some fly patterns for perch. By the way, the lake is lake simcoe.

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Again, I am remembering back a couple of decades ... or so ... and Perch are mostly minnow chasers and eaters. Small clousers, small swimming flies of any kind should work. Perch are also schoolers.

Two things to remember about schoolers:

(1) If you catch one big one, there will be more in the area.

(2) Schooling fish are always trying to get to bait first ... and faster moving bait usually gets more attention. Being able to rapidly strip the fly back to you can be the key to catching fish.

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Small clousers, makes sense I suppose since the perch schools are always near the minnows. Thank hank you for your help. I'm hoping for a jumbo in the spring so your advice is greatly appreciated.

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Simple bucktails tied sparse -- white with Peacock hurl over, dark green over hot orange, and the all-timer Mickey Finn -- were my perch jerkers back in MI.

 

Rocco

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I do a lot of perch fly fishing, and my top flies are a clouser (chartreuse and white) and a bucktail streamer. For the bucktail streamer, simple is better. I take a size 6 hook, wrap a few wraps of lead wire on, and tie on some bucktail. Usually red. This simple streamer catches me literally hundreds of perch every year in all sizes.

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I have never fished for perch on the fly but I used to catch tons of them out of Lake Champlain from docks in the marinas on worms, grubs, live minnows and rubber jigs with a curly tail. They are not picky eaters. But the fly to use would depend on how if you are fishing off of a dock or from a boat.

 

They are indiscriminate eaters, anything that will fit into a perches mouth can be food. They feed on small bait fish, aquatic insects and crayfish. If I was trying to target perch on the fly rod I would suspend chironomid, dragon fly and damsel fly patterns under a strike indicator. I would also fish a small bugger on the bottom (slow retrieve like a crawdad) and higher in the water like a minnow (could also use a small hair wing streamer). I would bet that sight fishing from a dock with a dry fly could be a fun and successful method, I'd try a big (10-12) Royal Wulff or adams or panfish patterns like gurgler.

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You know it's funny that over the years I have caught a number of perch, mostly by accident when fishing for other species. I know that they are schooling fish but I don't recall ever catching more than two from a spot.

 

Steve

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You know it's funny that over the years I have caught a number of perch, mostly by accident when fishing for other species. I know that they are schooling fish but I don't recall ever catching more than two from a spot.

 

Steve

Could be different from locale to locale. Perch was one of the few fish my Dad "targeted". We do Crappie runs and Perch weekends. One of my clearest memories is sitting in the boat, fishing one area of a bank loaded with over hanging trees. We'd fished the bank until we caught a bigger one, then Dad anchored. In this one area, Dad and I caught so many, the basket wouldn't close anymore ... it was time to go home. Of course, we were using live bait ... and this was during the Nixon era. Less fishing pressure, perhaps.

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In simcoe you catch them in waves, you'll either go out and catch 20 in an hour or fish for 4 hours and notta, zilch, zero. I saw a kid using a multi hook rig catch 2 10-12 inchers in a single cast

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One of the perch oddities here is that big schools frequent Chesapeke Bay which is salt or brackish water and they only get caught in any numbers in the spring when they run up fresh water creeks to spawn in waves. You catch piles of them on the run, but, the rest of the year, you hardly hear of any being caught.

 

Rocco

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Perch are great eating. mmm mmm mmmmmm.......I have never lived close to great perch fishing but I would think about using small sparse clousers with the hair tied all on the top side of the hook. White with some shiney materials mixed in and a little grey or olive on the back. I might also try a lightly weighted bend back in the same colors. A yellow and red version might also be good. I have always caught them closely related to the bottom so a fully sinking line might be useful.

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I didn't see very many patterns, but I'd like to pursue the "good to eat" debate. I don't know how, but if someone can start a new poll, I'd like to know which freshwater (U.S.) fish is best to eat... white crappie, bluegill, perch, walleye, smallmouth.... include whatever you want.

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Crappie, sunfish, walleye, and yellow perch........I don't eat bass, rock bass.....grandpa loved white sucker. never ate it myself. I have eaten pike but not my favorite. Salmon are ok and so are trout.

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