Perch Jerk on Lake Murray
As with past years, when December rolled around I gave the crappie a break and set my sights on White Perch. I know, I know, they are a pesky nuisance fish that needs to be removed from the lakes. Well, I thoroughly enjoy doing my part to take them out! LOL To me, white perch offer some of the most fun, fast paced, and productive fishing an angler can experience. And I would just about rather have them fried up on my plate as any other fish in the lake! It's easy to fill your coolers and it doesn't take a lot of advanced equipment to do it.
My first trip was last Sunday morning (12/4/16). I started out idling around some of the places we've caught them in years past and I didn't mark a lot of bait and fish at stop #1. I stopped and fished for a while over one school and boated a few before leaving. Stop #2 proved to be a lot better. In about an hours time I put around 40 perch and a 12 lb kitty in the cooler. I loaded up at 10:30 AM with a catfish and 47 perch. Honestly I would have stopped a lot sooner had I known how many I had to clean!
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Yesterday morning my dad joined me for another perch attack. It started out a bit brisk and never did get really warm. We fished the same areas as last weekend and found about the same result. We fished from 9-1:30 and caught well over 100 fish of varying species. It was fast action most of the morning. When we hit a lull we would idle around until we found something on the depth finder. We had a few more bonus fish this week that joined the perch in the cooler. A few catfish liked our offering as well as a 9 lb striper that put up a heck of a fight. We cleaned the cats, striper, and 60 perch. Some of which swam in the grease tonight!!!
All the fish were caught in 30-40 FOW over the last two trips using a mixture of medium shiners and spoons. The spoons caught the bonus fish and their fair share of perch, but the minnows always seem to produce the larger perch and the most numbers. I'll probably chase the perch a few more times, but I'll probably be putting some long poles in the boat around the Holidays!!!
Good luck and tight lines to all!
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