Some perching for a change and a PB

[misfish]

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. 

 

[TJQ]

Thats a nice feed!

[ketchenany]

I showed you mine and no drilling involved.  Who is Uber?  Yamaduber? 
In the 80s we paid Rick $2 in and $2 out of Innisfil. NO meter! I used to feed him at the hut and he did it for $0 after a while. We  kept him after we got our sleds out of 9th line. 

Good times were had. 
 

[AKRISONER]

an interesting concept to have an ice taxi...thats a new one to me. Ive heard of that for guys that have sketchy ice to cross with fan boats and hovercrafts but never just purely for the ice fishing.

 

That bloody perch is insane.

[Headhunter]

Nice feed Brian! I was on Cook's yesterday. It was pretty slow all morning.I did manage to get one bruiser pushing 15 inches. Pretty sure it was a male, based on it's body shape. Sitting on the ice, almost looked like a Peacock Bass it was so big!

Would have been nice to get a few more of them and yes, blowing up the bottom, bouncing your bait was the ticket to getting them interested.

Still, a great day to be out with good temps and some sun!

HH

[ketchenany]

1 hour ago, AKRISONER said:

an interesting concept to have an ice taxi...thats a new one to me. Ive heard of that for guys that have sketchy ice to cross with fan boats and hovercrafts but never just purely for the ice fishing.

 

That bloody perch is insane.

Yup he would sit on shore with a sled with two benches, take you out and pick you up.

made a  few bucks for sure. 
later we got our own sleds and stored them at his house. 

[AKRISONER]

13 hours ago, ketchenany said:

I showed you mine and no drilling involved.  Who is Uber?  Yamaduber? 
In the 80s we paid Rick $2 in and $2 out of Innisfil. NO meter! I used to feed him at the hut and he did it for $0 after a while. We  kept him after we got our sleds out of 9th line. 

Good times were had. 
 

gas prices were a lot cheaper back in the day 🙄

 

[NILS Master Lures]

What a great feed! Nice job!

[misfish]

9 hours ago, Headhunter said:

Still, a great day to be out with good temps and some sun!

BINGO Joe

I cannot wait for more warmer sunny days. Sounds like something an old folk would say . WTH  did that come from ?

[NILS Master Lures]

3 hours ago, misfish said:

BINGO Joe

I cannot wait for more warmer sunny days. Sounds like something an old folk would say . WTH  did that come from ?

It's true but this winter has felt LONG. Ready for warmer temps, longer days and the open water!

[Rizzo]

over 15 inch perch? insane. Brian I have left fish with bladder issues at the top of the hole as I fish, sometimes as time goes on it deflates and they swim away. Its just kind of annoying that they are laying there as you keep reeling in other ones!

[Old Ironmaker]

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. 

[misfish]

8 hours ago, Old Ironmaker said:

1st Brian I have to tell you there is no such thing as a 15 1/4 inch Perch

LOL Johhny

There is lots of talk this year that Simcoe will produce a 16" and possibly a new record. They are now feeding on the gobys and the shiner population has boomed beyond belief. This fish did not have the weight, yet . I would think for sure in about another month,it would of been well over the 2 pound mark just before spawn .

I have 3 witlessness,s on that fish .

[Headhunter]

I'm working on getting a pic of mine. As I didn't get enough for a family feed, I dropped what I had at a friend's place. He can't ice fish due to medical issues, so he was quite happy to get a feed for himself.

Hoping to get a pic from him soon. Funny, I can't stop thinking about that perch! Definitely a P\B for me....

HH

[Headhunter]

Buddy measured it for me... 13.5 inches. So you will Brian, but it's still a PB for me!

HH

[misfish]

I failed to mention this Johnny , the reel I bought off Dax had a 16 + pound floro leader attached to the braid. I didn't bother to swap it out for a smaller diameter, so, it was caught on a heavy floro leader too.  There goes that light line theory .LOL Actually, you cant even see the leader line in the pic.

[David Chong]

On 2/27/2020 at 5:55 AM, misfish said:

LOL Johhny

There is lots of talk this year that Simcoe will produce a 16" and possibly a new record. They are now feeding on the gobys and the shiner population has boomed beyond belief. This fish did not have the weight, yet . I would think for sure in about another month,it would of been well over the 2 pound mark just before spawn .

I have 3 witlessness,s on that fish .

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.

[OhioFisherman]

Huge perch!

[Out4Trout]

There it is!! The time is now for big perch!!