Late season perch., 🔥

[stinkbait]

Late ice is my favourite time of the year for perching, I go out in the mornings and I can and usually have enough for a meal or 3 by 11:00. The perch don’t skip breakfast in the springtime! Had a good morning yesterday and today and heading out on Monday.
Catching them in 14 fow with gold tungsten jig and gold doojigger w/ orange lightning bolt. Tipped with or without salted shiners. Over a weedy bottom.

[stinkbait]

Today

[sabmgb]

some nice eats there.

[Zany13]

Nice catch!

Which parts of Simcoe were you at?

Cause I was scoping around for a launch site and saw NO ONE anywhere around the east side of Cooks.

[stinkbait]

These were not lake Simcoe perch. These are from Lake Couchiching, Rama.
About 1 ft of ice but soft and white on top. A couple quads and sleds out today.

[stinkbait]

Fishing today started out slow, I changed lures a few times and once I put the perch coloured jigging rap on that was it i immediately started hauling in the keepers. Fished till 11:00 and caught a pike today and 1 perch with no stripes.

[stinkbait]

No stripes

[crappeeeman]

You have caught a couple with no stripes this year. I have never seen one like that. Very cool.

[kenster]

Beauty catch of tiger slabs

[Washout]

That's a nice feedbag.....

Perhaps in the future you could include a water bottle or similar for size reference.
Cheers,

[stinkbait]

yes I was thinking the same thing! for refrence the biggest perch in all 3 pics is 12" I throw the over 12's back in the water, but I didn't catch any over 12" at all this year.

[Limacharley]

question for the audience....

Everyone is different, I realize that but at what length is your usual cut off between keeping a perch and throwing it back in?

Do you find smaller perch harder to clean (salvage meat) and maybe not worth the effort?

Thanks in advance.

[crappeeeman]

That is a great question. I don't target perch, and when one is caught, it is released. If perch were the target fish, then my 11 inch crappie rule would be in play. Cleaning small fish is not an option for me. There is not enough meat on a small fish to justify killing it. This is just my opinion on which fish are kept. So a perch would have to be 11 inches or bigger to keep, just like a crappie.

[RHYBAK]

My keep plan is based on what I am catching that particular day.

If I'm on a bad day and catching dinks( not a big one in sight) I'll keep 8" plus just for a feet


If I hit the honey hole then 9" plus are taken home to take a bath in Crisco Lake

[Jerkbaiter]

For me it also depends on how the fishing goes.

if I am catching the good sized ones , I usually keep a dozen or so over 8" , otherwise i will take home the smaller ones also about a dozen or so.

By the way, myself and most of the fishing folks I talked to like the taste of the smaller perch.

The bigger ones from Simcoe are not as flavored as the smaller ones and taste rubbery to me.