Percapalooza

Late winter and early spring is almost certainly the best time to target big perch, whether they be yellow perch (Perca flavescens) or white perch (Morone americana). The second is a temperate bass, not a perch. People really play with terminology when it comes to fish names. Bass and perch in particular. But I digress... this is the time of year when big perch stack up on warm, deep flats near the places they will spawn. Find them, put flies or jigs over them, and they will hit the deck in serious numbers. Rick and I found them yesterday after a sketchy run dodging logs in the main river and finding the magic depth change. No 15 inch white perch, but the yellow perch we caught were fat, strong, and eager. We actually had a couple of them jump for us, which I have never had yellow perch do before.

Perch are pretty, perch are good fighters, and you know what... perch are tasty. So we put some in the box. I went home with a good bunch of fish to make dinner for three. Fresh fish, harvested with respect.

Perch harvesting has been done in this piece of water for years and for a while it was extremely destructive. Barrels of fish, mostly white perch, were pulled from the river. Those days, fortunately, are gone and the decreased number of white perch resulted in the end of the commercial fishery in all but one small tributary.

Some anglers like to share photos of their fish in the well, laid out on the ice or the cutting board. I can't personally appreciate photos like that. Fish are beautiful alive. Photograph them then.

My fingers are crossed that the next outing in this water will produce a good number of big anadromous white perch. The run here never happened at all last year, the reason why is not yet understood. Those, and whatever big yellows I catch, will be swimming away after the encounter.