Perch are back

Been a while since I fished the upper end of Murray so today I went with one of my fishing buddies, Harry. We put in down the lake at SCE&G #4 since I knew it was out close to the river and with the lake down, I was not sure which ramps were usable. There was a lot of boat traffic in the river, most fishing for Stripers. After fighting the waves from all the boats for a while we decided to run up to our old haunt at Clouds Creek. Turns out the ramp there is fine and should handle most rigs. We were seeing gulls all over and some fishermen but we did not see anyone catching Stripers. After watching a flock of gulls picking minnows off the surface and no one hooking up I told Harry I thought it was White Perch running the minnows up. So we eased into the area with minnows down on about 7 rods. That is when it went crazy. Harry had one on, then two and when the third rod went down I went back to help only to see two of mine go down. Apparently we had drifted into a large school because I set the anchor lock on the I-Pilot and we caught fish like crazy until we ran out of minnows(72) Here are a couple of shots of us, Harry with one of several doubles until we started using just one minnow on each rod. Also Butch's cooler shot. We ended up with 50 decent ones for the pot and maybe a few crappie eggs spared by removing these guys. Unfortunately. they were almost all full of eggs so there are more on the way.

Hey SeaRay, thanks for the report! I'm glad to know that there is some action going on up there,and good pics too---thanks!!I never knew white perch strips were soo good to eat until last Nov. They make a great meal with fries, hushpuppies, and some good ol zesto's cole slaw! Hopefully I'll be up there soon again too. I need to get 2 carbs rebuilt first though.Thanks for the post always good to hear success

Ray, sounds like y'all had a great time on the lake. The perch bite can be fun when you find them in a big school :) Thanks for the report and pics.

Way to go Ray. That perch jerkin can be a blast. Thanks for the pics.

Nice catch Ray and thanks for sharing

Glad y'all caught a mess of them, congratulations Ray. Thanks for the report and pics.

Nice catch! Thank you for sharing.

Way to go Ray

Great cooler shot Ray, it does my heart good to see all those perch floating. (lol) I'm no fan of white perch, but I'm pleased so many find catching them rewarding and great table fare. Congrats to you and your friend on putting the smack down on a pile of perch.

Thanks for the report