Looks like 3M and I need to drag our rear ends over the mountain and do the Vation this year. I havent fished it for sometime. Ice was capping it the last time I made a visit there and that was 5 winters ago as I recall. Now days our float tube is blue and white, a tad larger, and pricy to transport behind the 1 ton.
But hey, we’ll get after it at the vation sooner or later and I’m Glad to see you guys got into a few for the fry pan.. Good on ya ol’ buddy
Always a pleasure to share the water with you my friend.
I’ll have you know that I paid good money to have that deer released just ahead of us…so I could dazzle you with my evasion tactics. My high pitched scream was just a part of the show.
TD,
Yet another great report with pics. Looks and sounds like a great time. How do you keep the perch dinks off??
also, thanks for the smoker tips.
rich
Your right TD, I spend a lot of time at work and a lot of time at the baseball field. 2 boys just finished with 2 teams now they are down to 1 team each. Ball is winding down so fishing should start up more for me …hoping.
Got out tonight to Vernon Res with the boys for a bit caught some small rainbows and 10"tiger on fly and bubble. All released ended up with a flat tire to only find that Big O kept my lug nut key the last time they rotated the tires
Had to borrow a plug from a camper and a small air compressor to put 45 pounds in the tire and limp it home.
The boys caught fish and had a good time so it was all good.
TD,
Yet another great report with pics. Looks and sounds like a great time. How do you keep the perch dinks off??
Short answer…don’t drop your line in the water.
**Longer answer…experience, technique and luck. It is generally believed that perch tend to hang out in schools of fish of approximately the same size. That is true for the most part but there are often bigger fish hanging around the smaller ones, especially if the big ones are feeding on the same small invertebrates. That is common in Starvation. Big perch will eat young perch fry, but larger ones are too big to eat. However, they all feed heavily on leeches, scuds, shrimp and small crawdads in Starvation so they all hang out where the groceries are. **
If your first fish is a bigger fish, hopefully it has friends and family of a similar size nearby. But, if your first 50 fish in one spot are all dinks, you might wanna move. Often the larger fish prefer to stay away from the pesky youngsters until feeding time. Kinda like people.
But, when all the fish are active and feeding you can get hits from any size fish on any cast or drop. One of the methods I use to help avoid smaller fish is to carefully watch the line and rod tip…and to use light and sensitive rods for maximum feel. If I get a “rattle rattle” bite, that is usually a dink perch and I do not set the hook, although sometimes they hook themselves and I have to reel them in and remove them. Often the bites just stop and I have to bring in an empty hook and add more worm.
There are some things I look for to help insure that I don’t waste a hookset on a dink perch. One is a heavy thump that indicates a larger fish. That could be a larger perch, a walleye or a smallie. Also could be a chubosaur. Another good indicator is “weight”. If your rod tip just bends down a bit and stays there…or if there is a “rubber band” feel when you raise the tip slightly…it is time to uncock your wrist and snap the rod upward. Hopefully the tip dives downward and you go bendo with a biggun.
Many of my larger perch are caught as soon as I hit the bottom on a vertical drop. I try to close the bail on my reel and raise the rod tip slightly as quickly as possible after “touch down”. Sometimes the lure stops because it is intercepted by a fish. Sometimes one will swoop in and scoop it up off the bottom as soon as it stops. When either of those things happen you will feel something on the line as you lift it slowly off the bottom. It takes practice (and luck) to quickly decide whether you have a fish or a piece of weed or other snaggy stuff. But, if it is a fish there will usually be something pulling back…the rubber band feel. Time to snap the wrist and set the hook.
**There is an old saying that you need bigger lures or baits for bigger fish. That ain’t true with dink perch. They will nibble on anything of any size until they get the bait or impale themselves on the hook. It is also not true for the bigger perch. If they are feeding on “bitty bites”…small invertebrates…using a larger lure or bait may spook them rather than excite them. **
Most veteran perch jerkers can recall times when using a large jig or spoon tipped with a large chunk of perch meat put a grundle of toad perch in the cooler. That is a good remedy for porky perch in most perch waters…most of the time. But, at Starvation I probably catch more BIG perch on smaller offerings than on big stuff. The key is to first find the fish and then to finesse them.
**Right now the big difference seems to be depth. The shallow water…under 20 feet…is full of fish, but mostly smaller ones. Bigger perch seem to start showing up in over 25 feet and on our trip we caught them in over 35 feet of water. But, there were also dinks at all levels so we still had to deal with those. It was just that we had a better chance of catching a few larger perch by fishing in the deeper water. **
YOU CAIN’T KETCH 'EM WHERE THEY AIN’T
well said, another chapter to go into my ‘td’ cliff notes.THank you.