Simcoe Perch & Smallies

[Aaron Shirley]

I fished with Tony on Simcoe yesterday for perch and smallies, although we spent most of the day for perch... we were having too much fun

 

We launched in Peferlaw, but unfortunately it was pretty windy to fish the break we wanted, so we decided to duck behing Thorah Is and look for fish on sonar. We didn't see or catch much. It calmed down a bit over a couple hours, so we went to the break we wanted to originally fish, and there were boated all over it. We went to the outside of the pack where a bunch of turns were diving for smelt, and it paid off. Constant action with all sizes mixed in. The majority of boats caught on eventually and moved over beside us to the diving birds.

 

There was no magic lure, they hit Mepps Little Wolf spoons, 2" Storm swim jigs, Jigging Raps and a funky lead jig/spoon Tony had. We got a bunch of herring as well, which was good to see. The population of herring looks like it's getting healthy. If you get one, release it right away, you cannot target them, as they are protected.

 

We found them typically in the deeper breaks on soft bottom 27' to 33' deep, from 15' down suspended to bottom.

 

Great time as always Tony. Glad you could make it out.

 

This is what a herring looks like, they are different from whitefish. They are typically smaller and have an upturned mouth, whitefish have a downturned mouth.

 

 

 

 

Disorderly perch, LOL

 

 

 

 

We wanted to try smallies for the first time on Simcoe, so we headed for shoals and rocky areas to do some searching for the remaining couple of hours, but we had a hard time catching or seeing anything. Eventually Tony got a nice smallie just under 5lbs on a jig and FinS Fish. Fluky stuff, he cast it out, put his rod in the holder, picked it up and fish on!

 

Tony's first good Simcoe smallie.. I have still yet to get one.

 

Good fishing!

 

Aaron

[Cudz]

nice pics.

[Guest Johnny Bass]

Great Report. I like that action shot of the perch. I wanted to try jigging too but opted not to. I hear it is a very productive technique at this time of the year, so I may give it a chance. Thats a nice Simcoe smallie too. Thanks for sharing.

[Leecher]

Looks like you guys had a good time!!!

Great report and pics Aaron

Thanks for sharing

Leechman

[ehg]

Nice report and great pictures as usual! The picture of the cisco is great and the tip on identifying is helpful.

Very nice

[tonyb]

It was an amazing day weather-wise and lots of fish and laughs to make for a great day.

 

This was the start of a fish-filled weekend, and I think we should do it all again next year!

 

Tony