by Shane Akin

When you are perch fishing, you have to think like you are hunting.  What I mean by this is, perch are not going to come to you, you have to go to them.  Perch like to roam, here one day and gone the next.  The best way to find them is to use your electronics and motor around until you find them.  Perch will hug the bottom most of the time, so you are looking for marks on bottom or right off.

The one thing that I have found over the years is to find the transition areas of hard bottom meeting soft bottom that is going to produce fish more times then not.  Once you have found a school, use an assortment of baits, let the fish tell you what they want that day.  The baits I like to use when jumping around looking for the active school are Shucks Jiggers, Kastmasters.  Once you locate the active fish then you can find tune your presentation with Mini jigs, tungsten baits like the ones made by Kenders.

Try an assortment of colors until you start catching fish on a regular bases and get a pattern, then you can start switching all your rods over to the same bait and color.  I like to use wigglers and minnow heads when chasing perch but plastics will work great at times also.  The other go to way of catching jumbo perch is a slip bobber and minnow, small plane hook with a spilt shot above it, I like to use ultra lite rods with 3 or 4# line.  These light rigs will help you catch more fish as you can feel the softest of bites.

You want to try different methods, one is to keep the rod moving and dropping the rod to keep contact with the bottom, the other way is to dead stick it and not move the bait at all.  Both can be deadly on perch, you have to keep mixing it up until the fish tell you what they are looking for that day.  These methods work year round on the open water or ice fishing.  The main thing you have to do to become a great perch fisherman is to be willing to move and move some more to stay on the fish.  Perch fishing is a great way to get kids hooked on the sport of fishing, so please take the time to take a kid fishing.

Great Lakes Guide
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