Northwest Fishing Reports

I was just wondering if anybody has a good method of locating the schools of perch?
in the lake I fish they tend to hang out around 10-15ft down

Perch mainly hang out on the bottom of the lake. You can use a tube jig and add a small piece of worm to them.

Fishfinder or more simply, when you can't keep em off your line.

Another place to look is in coves. Perch always seem to hang around in coves.

I usually move around alot casting a nightcrawler on a wedding ring letting it hit bottom and twitching a bit, then slowly retrieving, once i get my first perch (especially if its of any decent size) i put my anchor down and continue fishing that one spot. Perch love anything shiny/flashy.

A couple other tips i have heard is taking longer to get the first fish in. The flashing of the first fish is supposed to attract other perch.

And to attach bright colored flags to your anchor line.

Interesting comments above. Flags on the anchor line? I have got to try that.

I, to be quite honest, do not believe the fish finder will help all that often. Perch tend to set right on the bottom, and even my Hummingbird 767 dual beam cannot separate the fish from the bottom. If I did not check the area out with a small jig, I would not even fish 90% of the areas that I have found good perch in.

Good advice samm3,..my son {Reels_N_Rods86} uses that method all the time to catch Perch,..showed me it today at Sawyer and it worked,..not only for Perch,..also worked for Bluegill and Crappie,..!

BB

I have hadallot of luck using worm and bobber. but I might have to give that tying flags to the anchor trick, and samm3 is right when you bring the fish in slow the whole school follows the hooked fish.

using those little tube jigs works awesome! I went out and caught a ton of perch, crappie, and bluegill on them today! along structure is the best place to find perch... rock piles, weedlines w/ a drop off, and points.... but the cruising around until you find one is great then anchor there cause they travel in schools!

To me, it seems like finding schools isn't really neccesary at this time of year. Just anchor or drift in 8 to 18ft with fishing a small piece of worm near the bottom.

You want to look for schools in the fall and winter when the fish go deep.

bfll -
This time of year perch tend to be pretty scatterd. They tend to concetrate along weed lines and along 10 to 20 foot flats. As we move into the fall and water temperatures cool the fish will being schooling in much larger schools. First relatively shallow (less than 20 feet) and them moving slowly deeper as the water cools

To find perch this time of year I like to troll with deep diving crankbaits. I like plugs like Norman's little N, Double Deep WeeR Rebels, etc. That is plugs that will dive 12 to 15 feet deep without being too large. Trolling allows one to cover a lot of water and the plugs seem to select for some larger fish. I like to work the 15 to 20 deoths concentrating my efforts along shorelines outside the docks, along flats, outside of weed lines, humps and points. Once I find fish I will either troll back and forth over the hot spot or change over to mini jigs and cast into the productive spots. Once you find fish this time of year you can usually return to the same general area and find them time after time until the water temps cool and the fish begin forming larger schools.

Trolling the plugs is a great way to involve young kids though the down side of dragging those bass plugs is that you will catch your share of bass (especially smallies) and large trout.

Tight lines
Curt

Ok, I think this is a little funky and may even be cheating but a friend of mine told me that he has seen this method; once you have the type of fish you want in the boat, tie a line with a bobber on and let him go. Then simply follow him back to his school, bring him up, release (or keep for dinner) and start catching all his buddies.

it might just be me but i have not found any perch...let alone perch schools anywhere hmm. just in the last week i've been to

angle
fenwick
fivemile
north

maybe i'm just fishing crappy lakes and it probly don't help that i don't have a boat.