Do you always need live bait for perch?

[Bushman]

I know that minnows, worms, nymphs and soft shelled crabs are the preferred baits for catching yellow perch, but what about artificials like small Twister Tails or Fuzzy Grubs on jigs or strip bait or Gulp minnows? My father-in-law caught lots of perch on those soft shell crabs, but for the high price of the bait you could have bought perch fillets.

[ncboman]

I'm no expert on yellow perch. We catch one once in a while around here fishing for other fishes, often on red worms or small spinners, ie, rooster tails, etc.

There is a lake south of here (Phelps) where they (English perch) are a primary species but I understand the bite is very early spring and I haven't gone after them.

Storebought minnows are used some around here for speckled perch (crappie) and a few buy minnows for just fishin. White perch like em, ... well, everything likes em. :rolleyes:

Personally, I doan buy minnows. I seine mine from the river shore when I want some, usually midsummer when the water's warmed up. :D

We also sometimes catch and use freshwater shrimp with a special net. It looks like a landing net with a small mesh wire basket for the net and a long (8') handle.

Perhaps a pictorial of bait gathering would make good forum fodder. :rolleyes:

Old saying here, the preferred live bait of the day is always the hardest bait to find.

ncboman

[Bill Gunn]

In Lake Erie 99% are on minnows, but it is very common to catch 12"+ perch on Rapalas, and worm harnesses when trolling for Walleyes.
Minnows are just the easiest bait to get, and perch like 'em, may be the reason they are so often used.

[Bushman]

That is what I thought that I would hear. We get the occasional big perch when we are jigging for walleyes, but the guys that really score on them are using live bait. Do you see any seasonal change from minnows to night crawlers as it gets later in the season?

Bill, you mention running 12 miles on Erie to find the perch. Do you usually go to your marked spots via GPS or are you starting out new every day and finding them with the Humminbird and the QuadraBeam Plus? When I was a kid, we could just row out into deep enough water out in the Bay and catch a bucket full of perch. Now we need to go out looking for them.

While I've got you, do you have any trouble with the QuadraBeam Plus transducer seeing past the lower unit of your outboard? Both hang off my transom and are not that far apart. I guess I could drop the transducer lower than the prop to see out that side or rig a transducer mount off the side of the boat. What do you do?

One more thing. I bought the optional QuadraBeam Plus transducer late last year and only got a chance to use it in a mud bottom lake with no discernible structure. I know it marks fish better than the stock transducer with that split screen feature, BUT does it also still have the side scan, side imaging sonar views or do you give that up with a QuadraBeam Plus? Thanks.

[Bill Gunn]

Bushman

On the American side I anchor at a GPS spot that I think holds fish. If no fish after 15 to 20 min. I move.
On the American side the bottom is very rough, and looking for fish with a finder is tough. The finder sees the highest point of the bottom. When the fish are hugging the bottom all you will see (on any fishfinder) is red/yellow streaks near the bottom, and occasionally a fish shows up that appears to be BELOW the bottom (It's in a low spot between to higher spots). On the image below (These are all actual images I took with my depthfinder while perch fishing) you can see my sinker (Blueish color) to the left of center, and perch hugging the bottom at 74 feet to the right of center (red/yellow color).

http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2250/777751/20005931/364777579.jpg

On the Canadian side the bottom is very flat, and it's easy to find the fish.
First I go to a GPS mark, and look for the fish. Then using my electric I circle around, and approach the school from the downwind side.
Here you can see a few perch chasing a school of bait..

http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2250/777751/20005931/364777571.jpg

Going a little further I see that there are more fish off to the right of the boat (Looking at the bottom right panel). This tells me that the main school is right of the boat, so I turn the boat a little to the right.

http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2250/777751/20005931/364777577.jpg

I go a little farther into the wind, shut off the trolling motor, and drift right through the school. I do this over, and over....

http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2250/777751/20005931/364777567.jpg

And then that night I clean a lot of fish :) :)
As you can see, the QB works super.

As far as mounting, I have the QB transducer mounted lower than my 2 other transducers to avoid problems. My main motor is mounted to a "Trim, and Tilt" unit, so it gives me a handy place to mount my SI transducer. The SI transducer is not even in the water when I'm plained off.

http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2250/777751/20005931/364777563.jpg

http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2250/777751/20005931/364777547.jpg


One other thing. I found that if I run the sensitivity on my finder as high as reasonably possible, and then train myself to "read through" the interference from motors, other depthfinders, and bubbles in the water, I'll see many fish that other guys miss.

[Bushman]

Thanks Bill. Thorough as usual; I appreciate your input. I see that you run the side imaging and the QuadraBeam Plus transducers. I guess that answers my question that unless I want to run both and I do see that second connection point on the Humminbird, I don't get the side imaging with the QuadraBeam Plus transducer. Given the choice I guess I would rather see fish than just miles and miles of bottom. Those ship wrecks that they show in the advertisement seem few and far between.

[Bill Gunn]

To run the 2 transducers, you run the wires to a Humminbird transducer switch mounted on your console, then one wire to the head unit.
You determine which transducer your using with the switch...

http://www.boatersworld.com/product/MP63487432.htm?utm_medium=productsearch&utm_source=google