Echo Presidents Day

[MWScott72]

Shawn and John said most of what I would say, so I’ll just add a couple notes.  Most of my perch were caught on a Swedish pimple or the gizzy bug Shawn mentioned.  For whatever reason, the didn’t really like my Halie’s which are usually my go to for perch.  All were tipped with eyeballs, wax worms or meal worms, but eyeballs always produce more…and don’t cost almost $4 like the little tubs of waxies or meal worms!

I only caught two trout and broke another off on the hook set. Two were on the setup Shawn mentioned, the 3rd actually took the Halie and was right off the bottom (it was my perch rig at the time).  After 11, the bite really died and so did the perch size.  Most after 11 were of the smaller 5-7” variety.  The egg laying hens must have a “girls location” scoped out there somewhere that they retreat to.  If u find it, I’m sure the fishing would be off the charts.  I cleaned 41 fish with only 2-3 being males.

Also after 11, the fish that did show on the graph got much more picky.  Both trout and perch would approach the bait, suspend, and then go back down or disappear.  They clearly weren’t all that interested in feeding.  I had quite a few trout do that between 11-3:30 when I got off the ice.  Morning is definitely the time to be out there.

@jigfisher and MWScott72 do you mind mentioning what depth you were finding the perch? Do you ever catch perch bigger than 11" at Echo?

Perch seem to Be where you find them.  We were off the new campground at Echo (Dry Hollow….can’t remember the name.  As Obi says, that whole area to the west of the campground is one big flat.  2 weeks ago, it was 27 feet.  Now it’s 32 feet, so water level Has been rising.  Generally, at Rockport I don’t fish deeper than 40 feet, but perch have been caught at 15-20 feet there this year.  Look where the tents are at and start there.  Don’t drill on top of folks, but drilling at a distance is fine.  If you’re not finding fish in 10-20 minutes, move.  Sometimes only 20 feet makes a big difference.  Once you find them camp on them, but if action slows, drill holes in different directions and see if you can pick them back up.  Over time doing this, you can get a good feel for the direction the school of fish is heading.