Fishing for Perch

[cphubert 0]

Yes Dave, I love crappie thru the ice for eating but not as much in the summer then I like hornpout. , I head to the salt for fish and crabs. Miss the days of the smelt runs, white perch and salters, cod off the beach. Unbelievable what we did to our fish stocks, was very happy to see the stripers make a return hope the winter flounder do the same. My favorite salt water eating is tautog, never caught one on a fly, yet, did get a nice fluke in the salt ponds a couple years ago.

[Dave G. 0]

CP, the inland smelt aren't even doing so hot, the runs coming out of Moosehead Lake in Maine for instance. Salmon feed on those heavy so the salmon are getting a bit smaller and fewer large ones too. Not to mention Small Mouth Bass got introduced illegally up there and they are spreading now 25-30 years later. It's tough to hook into a really good salmon now up there but you could get a corker smallie in some areas. Salmon are slimmer than they used to be but they so far are still there. Brookies are doing fine. I blame the smelt run problem on poor run control. They have fish ladders that aren't even in use, one inland fisheries guy says those aren't ladders but another one let it slip that they aren't in use because they don't want the smallies and white perch spreading through the whole eco system. Some of the more wild runs they have had recently an on going program in the summer to clean up blow downs and so forth restricting water flow though. There are big smelt and bigger salmon in some of the smaller waters above Moosehead but you do need a boat.

 

I haven't looked for myself but gulls have been by the herring run in the canal out here for nearly a month now. We must be having a good herring run year. That's good news for the stripers, they feed on those and mackerel, bunker, crabs ( always small crabs in there) and pogies. Maybe today I'll take a ride and see if the south side runs have any herring activity yet, they should be in over there any day now. Usually Blues come in on the heals of the herring with stripers soon to follow.

 

Happy Fishing !

[corney 0]

The nearest ocean to this lake is more than 2000 miles. It is actually in a series of man made reservoirs connected by canals fed from Lake Defienbaker which is actually a large reservoir of the South Saskatchewan River.

 

There are Rainbow and Browns in the South Saskatchewan that have been introduced but none here.

 

Pike, walleye, yellow perch, burbot and some whitefish. They seem to have died off in the warm water?

 

There is an old river channel right out in front of my house, couple coulees because it is a valley and a couple of roads under the water to provide structure.

 

Looking forward to June to chuck big bugs at the pike in the coulee, fish the bottom of the old River channel with a get down line and now try some of the bugs mentioned above for perch early in the year.

 

Think I am going deep with a chronomid or bloodworm with a floating line, indicator and long leader. I might try some emergers just below surface.

 

Trolling with Mickey Finns, Buggers and other nymphs has worked well for walley just never caught a perch?

 

Maybe I will have to tie a perch eye fly to bounce along the bottom to catch a burbot?

[Dave G. 0]

The perch ( yellow) are probably hanging out in pockets around the impoundment somewhere and at different levels than the wallies. Whether they are in the shallows or in the troughs is your task for this year me thinks, in time you will know that reservoir " officially " well. Remember to slow down the retrieve or trolling.

 

I've never really known the bigger perch to be on chironamid emergers, if you get them that way be sure to let us know.. I've fished in a lot of ponds with both perch and trout in them, the trout key right on a chironamid hatch, bluegill can too. I've never caught a perch on a chironamid emerger. For 20 years I fished these ponds with chironamids nearly exclusively too. But hey in your area maybe they do that.

[Peterjay 0]

Yes Dave, I love crappie thru the ice for eating but not as much in the summer then I like hornpout. , I head to the salt for fish and crabs. Miss the days of the smelt runs, white perch and salters, cod off the beach. Unbelievable what we did to our fish stocks, was very happy to see the stripers make a return hope the winter flounder do the same. My favorite salt water eating is tautog, never caught one on a fly, yet, did get a nice fluke in the salt ponds a couple years ago.

I've caught quite a few yellow perch on nymphs fished deep. The patterns didn't seem to matter much. Other than that, they were always an incidental catch on flies. There was a pond nearby where suckers would spawn every spring, and the perch would flock to the shoreline to chow down on the eggs. They'd hit just about anything.

 

CP: Yeah, all we're looking at are remnant populations these days, mostly thanks to industrial fishing. We even used to catch pollock from shore when the stripers runs dwindled in November/December. I'm not optimistic about winter flounder - the warmer water temps of recent years have really put a hurting on their survival rates. I often used to nail a few for dinner, back when I was diving the RI salt ponds for shellfish. Looks like those days are gone forever. Even the spring herring runs are finished in my old stomping grounds.

[Philly 0]

Probably another two or three weeks before things started picking up around here. Ocean temps are still in the upper 40's off of South Jersey. They're picking a few small stripers fishing bait from the beaches and white perch are being caught in the tidal creeks and rivers. Haven't heard of any shad or herring being caught or netted in the Delaware, it's been running high and cold from all the rain last week. The first real fly fishing opportunities in the salt will be when the slammer blues start invading the back bays around the first week in May. Till then trout in the local stocked streams.

[tidewaterfly 0]

I used to catch both White & Yellow Perch in the MD tidal rivers when I lived there. There were also some of each in the reservoirs & other freshwater, but I didn't venture to to waters much & didn't target those species if I did. Both will take pretty much the same flies, and as has been said are not picky about what they'll take. I had a box of "bonefish" or flats type flies, Charlie or Gotcha types, but others too that I used when I wanted to target them. Some were tied in colors not normally used for Bonefish, with more flash and some tied on lighter wire hooks than the tinned or stainless hooks used for Bonefish. Size 6, 4 & 2 is what I primarily used, and that was always a good size range. Both can be very aggressive, so the takes were not subtle and I always did better with a short strip type retrieve than I did dead drifting, but you have to experiment & see what they want.

[Dave G. 0]

I went to the herring run at the head water of the Mashpee river yesterday, almost up to Mashpee/Wakepee pond/lake and there were some herring in there and I saw a couple of nice sized ones mixed in. It was spotty, the water certainly wasn't clouded with them but it was nice to see that larger size, since they have mostly been small lately.

 

White Perch used to love the streamer fly called Silver Sides. I don't target White Perch anymore but I recall that working very well. And someone mentioned short strips, I agree.

[cphubert 0]

Dave, happy to hear of any fish returns. I hailed from Acushnet (Long Plain) in my younger time and fished area with my grandfather and friends years ago. It's changed a lot over time when I go back it is hard to recognize places. Most of my fishing then was with fresh grass shrimp, mummies or simple little bucktail streamers.

[corney 0]

The perch ( yellow) are probably hanging out in pockets around the impoundment somewhere and at different levels than the wallies. Whether they are in the shallows or in the troughs is your task for this year me thinks, in time you will know that reservoir " officially " well. Remember to slow down the retrieve or trolling.

 

I've never really known the bigger perch to be on chironamid emergers, if you get them that way be sure to let us know.. I've fished in a lot of ponds with both perch and trout in them, the trout key right on a chironamid hatch, bluegill can too. I've never caught a perch on a chironamid emerger. For 20 years I fished these ponds with chironamids nearly exclusively too. But hey in your area maybe they do that.

Appreciate that input, I will concentrate on deep and slow.

[fshng2 0]

Anyone doing any yellow or white perch fishing?

[vicente 0]

The only time I've caught or seen yellow perch was below the spillway of a little lake/creek on donnerpass about 6700 ft in elevation, seeing the color coming up I expected a brook trout, I was surprised.

[Philly 0]

I haven't specifically targeted them with a fly rod. Right now the white perch are starting to run up the tidal creeks over in NJ that run into either the ocean or Delaware Bay or Delaware River. I don't think many folks fly fish for them but they use shrimp and minnows for bait along with worms for bait. I've caught a few yellow perch on the fly rod mostly on small minnow imitations while fishing for pan fish. Biggest one I caught was 14 inches out of small creek near my sister's, must have come up from the Delaware River on the PA side to spawn.

[smbeck 0]

The spawn run for them should be starting soon here in MD and I plan on tossing some small shrimp patterns for them.

[Barbless Bob 0]

I fish a local gravel pond that has a healthy population of yellow perch, bluegills, largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass (a rarity in NYS). I worked on tying one fly that would catch all of those species and would be durable enough to catch dozens of fish without breaking down. I often take my 12 year-old grandson there, and he has a blast casting with his fly rod to these fish. He has caught all the species mentioned above on the fly shown below. While it works successfully from May to October, it is especially effective when dragon flies are mating. If anyone is interested, I would be happy to post the recipe.