Beaverton March 9th

[turtle]

Fished out of one of Tim Hales perch huts with 3 friends yesterday. We got to his office at 7:15 am and caught our first perch at 7:45 am. Service was good as ususal. Pretty much non-stop action all day but we only kept 5 fish out of 100 ++ caught. 2 were 11-12 inches. 2 herring caught. Marked fish all day on the flasher. There was 20 + inches of ice where I cut holes outside.

 

This was my 4th trip this winter in the Beaveron-Pefferlaw area from early January to yesterday -3 with operators and 1 walking out. Result was the same each trip, lot's of small perch and very few keepers. I prefer this area because traditionally less numbers but bigger fish compared to Cooks Bay. I know there is a seasonal movement of perch moving to spawning grounds nearer spring and that perch group up in the same year class and size. Any one else seeing a drop in the perch size in this area- on average over a few trips?

[Fisherman]

Someone I know said the same, he got 3 keepers yesterday and lots of dinks.

[Sinker]

We had a good day out there on wed last week, but saturday was much slower. Too much going on out there on the weekends, I think it screws up the fish. I'm gonna giver a try again mid week and see if my theory is right. The bigs ones are there, they just won't bite.

 

S.

[Mike Pike]

I booked with Floyd Hale the weekend before and noticed the same thing, Turtle. Average perch sized seemed smaller than in years past, with only a few jumbos in the mix. Still a far better average size than I usually find on Cook's Bay.

 

And yup, a few nice herring were caught and released. Their numbers sure seem to be increasing nicely.