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Beautiful day at Westport/Grayland yesterday! A couple brief heavy rain showers, but overall there was more sun than clouds for the day. Started with an EARLY morning razor clam dig...both me and my buddy got limits.

Then we started casting for perch. Just walked up and down the shore from Grayland Beach Rd to Cranberry Beach Rd hitting pockets of perch as we went along.

It was interesting to see how the day turned out. I was running a sliding weight and my buddy was running a double hook drop shot. The drop shot definitely out performed the sliding weight. Between us we got 21 perch, but my buddy got quite a few more than I did.

His very first cast was a 2.6 lb pile perch! It was a beast! He also hit a decent size striped perch (the half fish in the pic)....stupid seagulls were picking at it every time we turned our backs so we had to salvage what we could. LOL

Some of the fish in this pic are my buddy's fish and some are mine. I will say that the hog of a red tail on the bottom right is mine and he will hit the frying pan this evening. Can't wait! Wish I would have got a picture of his pile perch. Made that big red tail look small!

So next time you're fishing for surf perch, I would recommend the drop shot over the sliding weight. It performed way better. We were hitting them on clam necks, Gulp 2" sand worms, and good ole' night crawlers.

flyfisherguy

4/28/2014 3:58:00 PM

Thanks so much for this report! I have been trying to find out if the surf perch were active yet, good to see that it might be worth a trip to Westport!

vtran86

4/28/2014 4:13:00 PM

Hey mizm05, I'm actually at Westport now and your report makes me want to go for some perch. I was wondering did you wade out into the water? if so, how far did you go? also for when is a good time to go, low, slack, high tide?

Thanks

jmpurser

4/29/2014 6:34:00 AM

Thanks for the report and nice fish. I'm planning on hitting the Ocean Shores side next week.

I appreciate the information on the slider rig. I was going to (and still might) try that this summer. When you say your friend was "drop shotting" was he using the regular beach rig with a 2-4 ounce sinker on the end of the line and a couple of bait keeper hooks on droppers above? Or did he have a real dropshot rig like they use in bass fishing with the hook tied directly to the line and the weight on the the tag end?

mizm05

4/29/2014 9:03:00 AM

vtran, we went out to about knee high...never take your eyes off the incoming waves. If you have to put new bait on, or mess with your gear, walk back up to the shore and stay safe. Those incoming swells have a lot of force behind them and if you're not paying attention, they can sweep you off your feet. And don't fish alone. Safety first.

JM...He was running the saltwater drop shot with a 2 ounce pyramid on the bottom and the pre-snelled size 8 dropper loop lines coming off the leader. I was running size 4 and still hit fish...but he hit more than me so take that for what's it's worth.

jmpurser

4/29/2014 9:59:00 AM

Thanks Mizm05. I'd never heard of anyone going after perch up here with a drop shot rig. I've been tying up some surf rigs they use for Pompano back East that should work like your friend's get up.

And good safety tip. I wade after them and even when I think I'm watching from time to time I get the SNOT slapped out of me by a sneaker wave.

John

mizm05

4/29/2014 10:56:00 AM

I got knocked off my feet about a week ago over by the main jetty in Westport. Didn't look like a big wave, but it had enough force behind it to knock me off my feet and wash me up on shore. Not cool...

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