After fishing at a few reservoirs that have both Perch and Trout, I still haven’t seen any perch, let alone catch any. I have been targeting trout, but I thought I might catch a few perch along the way. Are the techniques for catching perch that different from trout? What about tackle?
I had a great day on Echo today, but the only perch I saw were the 4 that the 19" fish I caught had in it’s belly. I saw a ton of trout, a giant carp, and I think a bass on the underwater camera, but no perch. What’s the deal.
If you are targeting trout, it doesn’t surprise me that you haven’t caught any perch. Perch hang out much deeper in the winter and have poorer vision in low light. They form large schools, and generally stay very close to the bottom. It’s not uncommon to hear of people perch jerkin at 50 feet in mid-winter. They’ll start moving shallower later in the season with warming water and longer days with more sun.
You need to move around alot to locate a school of perch if you wan’t to catch them. It is funny because one guy 20 feet away might be catching a bunch while you aren’t catching any. Stay deep and use little pieces of perch meat.
As far as tackle goes, most of the trout jigs work for perch just fine. Just remember they are a smaller fish. They fight like a wet paper bag, so use small panfish style rod and reel combos.
I will add, that when I catch perch in winter, the description is always, “XX feet deep, just off the bottom.” With trout it’s like "XX feet of water, SUSPENDED halfway down, " or something.
Trout can tolerate and even enjoy much colder water than perch. In fact I just saw on a fishing show they were discussing how the trout move shallow under the ice (rainbows,cutts, etc..) to move in on feeding areas not available to them in the summer, cuz it’s too warm.
I’m sure the paths cross, but at Rockport this year we caught several nice trout 15’ down in 50’ of water. Put one on the bottom at 50’ and caught two perch…
These guys are right in the majority of lakes - perch on the bottom, trout on top. There are some individual lake exceptions - or instance Fish Lake. The perch will be on the weed beds around the edges - still on the bottom, just not in the deepest water. The weed beds are about 10 to 25 feet deep. Out past the weed beds the bottom drops 90 to 120 feet deep. I suspect the perch are not there because that is where the Macs stay.
If you want to catch Perch, I have two words for you: Mill Meadow.
We caught 35 or so two weeks ago in about 45 minutes, and 76 today in about 3 hours…with one (of the two of us) sleeping.
Most are 5 to 7 inches long, but we caught some up to 10 or 11 inches or so. Might even luck out and catch a Brown or two.
Mill Meadow is 3 hours from Salt Lake. We had some other business down south this weekend, so we decided to hit it again…otherwise we would not have gone due to the 3 hour drive.
As others have stated Perch will be on the bottom. A good spring bobber is needed as the Perch bite is very soft. Without a spring bobber or sensitive rod tip like an ice blue rod it will be very difficult to see the Perch hit your offerings.
Now In discussions with DWR folks places like Echo and Rockport are in a bust cycle for Perch. Meaning a lot of small Perch or hard to find Perch.
We fished Echo 2 seasons ago and had great success for large Perch however last season it wasn’t good at all. Rockport we’ve never managed any Perch of size and haven’t fished there in 2-years.
If you want to catch Perch like previously stated Mill Meadow or Pineview. Pineview like Mill Meadow has a gazillion dink Perch. But we’ve done okay for larger Perch working the bottom and get’n below the dinks. I’m think’n by the amount we fish PV this body of water will be going through a Perch bust cycle this year and next as there are huge pods of dinks. But I’m no fish biologist.
Work depths of 30-45’ at Pineview. Shallower you’ll find a lot of dinks. Off Cemetery or Browning Point would be good places to start on Pineview. Ice should be good for a couple more weeks…just depends on the weather and how warm it gets. Good luck and hope you can find some quality Perch as them are some darn good eat’n fish.
Also lures to use, we use with great success are Nuclear Ants tipped with a Perch eye/meat, waxie, or snippet of night crawler. These same lures have proven very successful for nice PV Crappie also. Here’s a link to see what these ants look like.
