Perch Jerkin Time

It's that time of year again when the sunfish are bedding in the shallows. Take your dippin rods and tie on a #8 Carlyle hook with a pea size shot just above it and add a small float or slip bobber. What are you going to use for bait? Well that depends, are you after bluegills or redears? If its bluegills then use crickets and if you are after redears then worms are best. I know some people swear by meal worms, maggots or even slivers of salted shrimp. My experience has shown that crickets and worms get the job done.

When is the best time to find them??? Full moon phase and dark moon phase in May, June and July with full moon in May is the best for big fish. This coming Wednesday is the full moon so all this week will be good.

I went out tonight for a bit and caught a couple of "watch banders" that were 8" to 9.25" plus a few smaller ones and some last years bass spawn that were 5-6 inches.

Nice job, what times dinner?

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Originally Posted by Redge

Nice job, what times dinner?

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What do you want us to bring CG?

fish

CG your providing the Watchbanders, I have some fresh horseradish out of the garden! Bet that would go well with them perch.

DANG!!! That would be good. Looks like need to get busy and start rippin lips

Took a buddy and some crickets to Pawhuska Saturday. Fished from about 10am to 5pm. Ended up with 37 nice bream, mostly bluegill, some redear. Most all were "watchbanders"!

How deep were they jerker?

I finished up a photo shoot for an upcoming magazine article over the weekend and managed to harvest about a dozen 9" bluegill.

We went to a private pond Sunday and nailed the bluegills with a 64th ounce jig under a Thill Mini Shy Bite float. The fish were almost too big to get your hand around them. Had to drink about two gallons of Gatorade and various assorted drinks. Here is a pic of the jig. It has been getting a lot of bluegills and crappie, as well as some smaller bass. It's a very simple tie, four or five small hackle feathers. It has worked great at three different ponds.

Attachment 205956

Sorry about the pic. I thought I had rotated it correctly, but....... This jig got 62 bluegills (put most of them put back) Sunday, while other people were getting 5-10 on other jigs or worms.

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Originally Posted by 64stang

How deep were they jerker?

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Most of them just off bottom in about 8'.

When the lakes rose I put the crappie rods up and switched to my perch rods. Pawhuska is the lake of choice, no problems with high water. They have big blue gill and red ears you can locate all summer. I used to go Lake Lone Chimney to chase big red ears until the lake dropped because of the drought the last couple of years. I checked with the lake office the other day and it is sill 6 feet low even though it has risen about 10 feet in the last month.

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Originally Posted by bosshog

When the lakes rose I put the crappie rods up and switched to my perch rods. Pawhuska is the lake of choice, no problems with high water. They have big blue gill and red ears you can locate all summer. I used to go Lake Lone Chimney to chase big red ears until the lake dropped because of the drought the last couple of years. I checked with the lake office the other day and it is sill 6 feet low even though it has risen about 10 feet in the last month.

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Hey Boss,

I have never been to Lone Chimney. Does it have a good population of redear compared to Pawhuska? With what it has come up recently, would that make any of the ramps useable for a small boat/trailer?

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Originally Posted by cricket george

I finished up a photo shoot for an upcoming magazine article over the weekend and managed to harvest about a dozen 9" bluegill.

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George,

9" blue gill are dandies. I think your management plan is a success!!! I know you've put a lot of work into it. Must be very satisfying to see 1st hand what all your effort has produced. Congratulations.

Lone Chimney was my #1 red ear lake in the state before the drought couple of years ago. For almost 20 years I have fished it for red ears and it was tops (6-12 inch range consistently). It was average for bluegill. Pawhuska was a close second because it has a good population of big blue gill and red ears and the water is clear. I am sure some would swear by American Horse Lake but Lone Chimney was tops in my book.

As a side not L. Chimney is full of flooded timber. It was a great lake for huge bass an catfish. I have caught several of both over the years in the trophy category. Also, tried for crappie one morning a few years back and caught three of the largest crappie I have ever caught (2.74, 3.05, 3.25) at one time.

Both ramps are still out of the water at Lone Chimney. Hopefully they get enough rain to fill it soon.

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Originally Posted by bosshog

Lone Chimney was my #1 red ear lake in the state before the drought couple of years ago. For almost 20 years I have fished it for red ears and it was tops (6-12 inch range consistently). It was average for bluegill. Pawhuska was a close second because it has a good population of big blue gill and red ears and the water is clear. I am sure some would swear by American Horse Lake but Lone Chimney was tops in my book.

As a side not L. Chimney is full of flooded timber. It was a great lake for huge bass an catfish. I have caught several of both over the years in the trophy category. Also, tried for crappie one morning a few years back and caught three of the largest crappie I have ever caught (2.74, 3.05, 3.25) at one time.

Both ramps are still out of the water at Lone Chimney. Hopefully they get enough rain to fill it soon.

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I went up there Saturday after the BBQ cookoff in Cushing to check it out. Drove all the way around the lake. Must say, that is the most HIDDEN lake of any I've been to! No signage and lots of wash-boardy gravel roads. The ramp on the East side really isn't very good now, although there were some people camping there that had a boat. Don't know if they tried to put it in or not. looked awful shallow. On the West side, the water is even with the bottom of the concrete. It looks like it drops off pretty well past the concrete and the ledge isn't too high that a trailer would bottom out, so I think it would work. I took a few crickets and fished off the ramp a little bit. Only caught a handful of very small sunfish and a little channel. It does look really good though. Reminds me of American Horse with all the standing timber, just not as clear. May have to make a trip out there after the next batch of rain. Which ramp/area of the lake did you fish in the summer time for the redears?

I use to use the road on the south side of the lake (pre bass boat days) that runs out into the lake until they built the east ramp. It is much to shallow for that now. Anything close to normal lake levels the east side is the easiest to get to otherwise the west will have to do. Most of redears caught over years on southern part of lake as it heads west. There is lots of submerged timber and flats next to deep drop off's. Redears will roam the flats in 3-8 fow in summer and also tree lines. Of course all of this info specific to normal lake levels. Caught as many under boat as casting. When casting I usually drag it slowly on bottom back to boat. I have some old pics I can post if I find them.

L. Chimney has a lot of timber. It can be dangerous to newbies so be careful. From a distance most suspected I was a bass fishing because I moved around so much. Also, it used to have huge Florida strain bass.

Yeah Boss,

It looks like it should be fishy, fishy fishy. I don't have to worry about moving around too fast, as I just fish out of a 10' Buster with 2 trolling motors. Looks like now, just fish the edges of the tree lines and the channels. How bad does the wind tear it up? It's supposed to be gusts to 25 Saturday. That means Pawhuska will have 35+. That's a little much for that lake. Pawhuska is the only place I've ever had my little boat where I was concerned about being able to get back to ramp.

Never been to Pawhuska, can you put a 60 hp boat on it? Lot of those city lakes have restrictions. I really would like to catch a good mess of bream.

Lone Chimmney is a no wake lake. I fished it in the late 90's. 50 bass a day was common, but they all fell below or above the slot limit.
Not sure if they still have the slot limit on bass. The drought almost made it dry up. That can't be good for the fish.

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Originally Posted by okhawg

Never been to Pawhuska, can you put a 60 hp boat on it? Lot of those city lakes have restrictions. I really would like to catch a good mess of bream.

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I have 90hp on mine. I launch there all the time. It is a no wake lake so slow as you go. It is so small you could launch and literally troll all day and cover the lake easily.

Thanks, bosshog.

I started fishing LC with a bass buster 20 yrs. ago. I actually caught more fish from it than the bass boat. The smaller the boat the more you focus and fish an area properly. Wind does not really get a chance to build on LC because half of it runs east and west. The portion that is affected by the wind is closer to the dam area. I have fished it in winds up to 3O mph in my buster and it was manageable (with good anchor). There are several areas that have deep drop offs (15-40 ft. range at normal levels.

Does LC have any restrictions on boats? With the coming rain, the ramps might be usable.

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Originally Posted by okhawg

Does LC have any restrictions on boats? With the coming rain, the ramps might be usable.

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No restrictions. I have seen all types of boats on the lake. Bass, pontoon.....

You now have my curiosity up. Where is Lone Chimney?

Found it.

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Originally Posted by cricket george

Found it.

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Just south of Pawnee and west of hwy18. Google earth is the best to visit any lake before the first trip.

Thank you

Since the big lakes are up and not fishable, it seems that locating big bream ponds or lakes just makes sense to me. I brought in a thousand of my name sakes and I intend to drown them all in order to produce a pile of fillets for summer. Chirp on!!!:biggrin

Any pictures of those big bream General George? We are pretty desperate here!

I haven't ever targeted them but caught my biggest one to date last night. Took up every bit of my hand. Went to put it on the stringer and it's lip blew out and he swam off. Going to have to go fish for them one day.

Nip - I think I have a hedge on your bet for catchin some big bream. I can attest to Nip's loss last night.

Ok, C2 I will be forced to go bream fishing now just so I can relieve your craving for pics of ANy fish being lip ripped. Stay tuned.

Any way to keep from catching the lil ones? I am using worms and trying to fish the bottom but the itty bitty dinks will steal the bait to quickly. I know there are bigger perch as I catch them with cranks and jigs.

I'd use cranks and jigs then.

Here is a few wife and I caught on a small lake south of Fort Smith.
Attachment 213239

The water will be cooling shortly and its a full moon. Time to grab some red wigglers or crickets and go gettem