Trolling for perch

[Far Beyond Driven]

Greetings all:

working on a program to troll up some perch.

Please let me know about anything that seems to produce "accidental" perch on a regular basis. I know on Lake Macatawa if we can get through the sheepies we get quite a few perch on crawler harnesses.

Thanks for the help.

FBD, Holland, MI

[j9f]

The real answer to that is find them and anchor, but that isn't what you are asking.

I do think that perch on Erie hit trolled cranks (hot-n-tots) a lot more than spoons suspended. If I am dragging a downrigger near the bottom of Erie with a spoon.... I catch more perch off the rigger than I do off the boards with spoons. That may have something to do with depth, but I don't think so. The obvious problem is knowing when you have a perch on the rigger.

FBD.... I think I read one of your posts on another site that made me belive we went to the same college in Flint. I graduated in 1995. Shoot me an e-mail jlanzesi@yahoo.com.

[Far Beyond Driven]

Thanks for the response. The idea is to find them by trolling them up, mark a few waypoints, and then come back to drop anchor, hoping they're close to the waypoints. This would be faster than drifting along until finding a school.

We get a few each year in Lake Michigan trolling stick baits near the bottom for browns, so I was wondering if small rapalas and stinger scorpions would be an option.

I walked in 1998, A section, ME auto. Independent, hung out at the "beach house" a lot - the awful sahde of green house behind the ME wing. Was active in the Firebirds and Trap & Skeet clubs.

FBD, Holland, MI

[BeFishin]

I've caught quite a few when trolling No. 5 jointed shad raps in different crawfish patterns, including about a 10 incher on Monday. The jointed No. 4 might even work better.

[SUPERTROLLER]

How do you get it down to 40 or 45 ft. of water?

[Kolby]

I've had many, many accidental perch catches slow trolling 3 oz. bottom bouncers with stickbaits in deeper water.

[j9f]

Cool. I was a B-section TX. I'm heading out on Erie with some of the boys tonight.

If you ever get over to Erie, I'll take you out and see if we can troll up some perch or better yet eyes. If you ever want a place to dock your boat for the weekend on Erie, I can help there. Not sure how far up Lake MI you venture, but I get a dock every August in Frankfort.

[BeFishin]

I haven't had to get them that deep before. I was fishing 10-15 FOW on Monday. My first guess would be to use leadcore with a Fireline leader.

[BeFishin]

I haven't had to get them that deep before. I was fishing 10-15 FOW on Monday. My first guess would be to use leadcore with a Fireline leader.

[schrof]

I've done it 3-4 times this year on L.Michigan(south end) trolling Mik-Lurch spinners tipped with either minnows or craw claw, flat lined about 25-35' back over weed beds in 12-18' water at 1.2 - 1.4 mph on GPS. Between myself and a buddy we have caught over 100 Jumbos using this method.

[schrof]

I've done it 3-4 times this year on L.Michigan(south end) trolling Mik-Lurch spinners tipped with either minnows or craw claw, flat lined about 25-35' back over weed beds in 12-18' water at 1.2 - 1.4 mph on GPS. Between myself and a buddy we have caught over 100 Jumbos using this method.

[Terroreyes]

I agree with you. If you can get through all the sheeps(silvers and white perch too on Erie), harnesses have brought in the most accidental and purposely caught perch for me while trolling. Drifting harnesses has always worked well.
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[Mr.Seaguar]

Perch are so nomadic, I just anchor where they will likely show up. Spend so much time finding them and then they swim off before you get anchors down and fishing. Spinners, harnesses whatever the name they will catch some perch.

[TravisC]

just got back from lake of the woods and caught some big perch on a #9 taildancer while trolling for eyes.

[AD]

Put 150' of 10lb. test on a linecounter, three colors of leadcore and a 50' leader of 6 pound Fireline.

I would troll #4 and #5 Shad Raps in whatever species is on your lake. I use the perch and the silver shad type that doesn't have the rainbow stripe on my lake.

Get a dive curve like the one that in Precision Trolling and manipulate the leader attached before the leadcore to adjust your lure depth from there.

I personally think that using the Fireline leader makes up for some of the lure's wobble lost to using the leadcore. The leadcore dampens out the lures action. The jointed lures help a lot too.

AD