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What a gorgeous morning to be sitting out there watching the sun rise . Since the white fish have been so negative to me and my pal,we decided to do some perch,n . I book my uber for 6:30 am pick up. Right on schedule he was. Hook up the smitty and off we went . Seeing the meter was getting up there,I said, drop me off ,,,,,,,,,,,,,right ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,here. I step on to the hard water and my feet start to tingle. Drill 2 quick holes, throw in the ducer and there are fish down there. Drop my first line. 7grm Halo vabrado with a shrimp drop shot. As it,s going down and gets 10 ft from the bottom,a fish rises . I go to reel up slow, but in my excitement,I forgot to unlock the handle. You know, unfold them. Fish hits,I am fuddling with getting the handle in position. Fish is still one once I complete the handle. Reel up and a nice chunky 12". Fish still down there,so drop and again and well,up it comes,hits and that is another 12"er in a matter of few minutes. Do it again as they are still down there. Same thing. WOW this is going to be a great morning. That is when the brakes lock up . Not a single fish comes in again for 20 minutes. Move 3 times and pick up 1 keeper at each stop on my shrimp fly. Make one more move,last for the morning . Marking fish. Lots. Drop and they are not interested . After 20 minutes of trying to hook up,I drop down a new bait. Norland purple lipless. Keep it 10 ft off bottom and jig it looking for aggressive fish. A few rise, but go back down. I drop to the bottom,smash it off the bottom then reel it up. Got a chase. Coming,coming,coming and on. I thought maybe it was a small whitie the way it fought, but it would turn out to be a PB 15 1/4 " perch. Sadly it blew it,s bladder out, so it was coming home. These fish are big, but the meat result is not great. Males IMO, have the best thick shoulders. Anyhoo Ended with lucky 7 keepers for the morning. Just enough for a fresh feed . I can say this about perch,n ,they sure keep you glued to the finder watching . Unlike those whities that seem to be just cruising about and making you pull yer hair out. If those dang whities don't start to get active , I just may need to take up this perch fishing.

Finally got out for some Whitie action, saw quite a few on the Garmin unit and few co-operated! The ones that did bite on a Meegs(Surprise) and the NEW Freedom Blade Bait! When we moved into shallow water (28FOW) for some perch, I lost a Whitefish that was probably close to double digits on a Slab Grabber. Interestingly enough and maybe we can get some feedback from other Simcoe ice anglers, every fish we caught had no fin clips so I'm assuming that they're naturals! Fought it for a long time on 4 lbs. test and of course lost her right at the hole! LOL Got to test out my NEW Striker Climate Suit and I love it, very comfortable, warm and lots of practical features plus the security of the flotation. If anyone is looking for a new Floater Suit I would definitely recommend this brand! Gonna do a video on it shortly, will post it when it's done.

And that is just Terrys crap. 🤣

Yes, there are multiple line ties and hook positions! Check out this videos of it!

Nice Dave... remember that Ketchup washes that smell off your hands!! LOL

I have actually seen a photo of a 17 1/4" perch from Simcoe unfortunately they didn't weigh it, instead it was eaten. Would have been interesting.

Erie is a world class walleye, smallmouth and perch fishery. All other lakes are a distant second.

You and me both.

I've made a total of one Gumbo in my lifetime and it was sooooooo good. Gotta try it again.

I was thinking the same. Everyone who knows me has heard me speak of Jen more then once. Sorry your time with her was cut short but you had a special young lady there Wayne. Cherish all the good memories cause I'm sure there is many.

That looks sooooo good. I use the shrimp and crab shells to make stock for gumbo.

It's scary how often I speak of Jen to this day. She was and still IS a HERO to many!

We should be thanking you Wayne, and Jen, for inspiring all of us!

Just like Muskie fishing.. lift 5' or so and let it swim/circle back down! The lake is FULL of schools of minnows 20+ feet deep and 100 feet long. Inside those you'll see large "hooks" eating away. Sometimes these fish will dart out and head for your hook. Other "mystery" large red light ups on the screen are 4 or 5 herring (some 16" long!) swimming tight together, they'll drive you nuts on the lake but can be coaxed to bite with a green labelled swedish pimple. Other large red marks are "Walter", the cruising 20+ lb Laker that will inhale your still bait! Most of the time we don't jig.. absolutely still baits. One 5 or 6' off bottom, the other 5 to 10' above it.

no worries Wayne, I appreciate your input , I know you're really familiar with the lake and I like to hear what you have to say about it a tid bit, a guy in our camp caught a 20 lber in 24 fow, mid day, on a big sucker minnow (probably a little bigger than is legal, lol), I didn't see the fish, but I talked to him long enough that I believe his story

Just killing myself by browsing back through this, about 8 hours before Jen would turn 35 at 8 in the AM. Thanks to all for keeping me sane for almost 10 years and the same group of great guys I had up at my camp last week for allowing me to do my own thing each day ...while my brain continues to keep me awake a night!

1st Brian I have to tell you there is no such thing as a 15 1/4 inch Perch. How do I know that? There is or was a charter guy that fished the west side of Long Point and he said so. I called him out and he went all social media physco on me, he wanted to know where I live so he can come and beat me up and worse. I passed it on to our local constabulary, a death threat is a death treat no matter in person or online, the man is nuts. I never heard anything more, he was booted from the website and no longer saw his website online. It can be crazy here on innerweb land. That is a nice feed of Yellows you have there. In a restaurant in Port Dover that platter of Perch will set you back over 50 bucks. If one more person tells me Perch tastes like Chicken I'm going to sell them breaded Chicken fingers for 18 bucks a pound and tell them it's Perch. The last I looked last years frozen Perch was going for 20 bucks a pound, wowzah. Walleye about the same. Smoked Whitefish around 15.

I know nothing about Argo's except they haven't made the playoffs for a few years. The question I have is that you mentioned being able to drive a ATV on the shoulder of the road. I know it's illegal here in Haldimand county. How do I know? My next door neighbour got a ticket for it. The OPP were out in force in cottage country here on Erie and they had a zero tolerance day. They were ticketing golf carts as well. No plate, no drive. Some weekends out here there are more golf carts and ATV's on the road than cars.

Cool but how does Erie not make the list 😳

This is just an FYI for any of you boys who may buy fishing stuff from this place. They had a pretty bad fire there last week and it seems like the place is pretty well gutted. The owner hopes to re-build and open again someday but who knows when that may be. It's only a couple miles from my house and I drove by during the fire and and even though I was a fireman for many years it's still sad to see someones dreams going up in smoke. Anyways, if anyone uses this place you'll need to find somewhere else to pick up your supplies next summer.