Stumbled upon a White Perch
 

3rd summer fishing the lake and I finally wound up with a nice frisky White Perch of what seems to be a good size, just short of 14". Caught it while Smallmouth fishing and tried to find its school but only found smaller bass in the area. If you target them what size range would you expect to catch? I got a tip on this site for using small spinners with a worm around 25 to 35 ft deep in cove mouths. Any other ideas? This one was 25ft deep but nowhere near a cove. While I release all bass this fish was excellent eating. Would be nice to be able to find these regularly. Any tips would be appreciated.

If you are cruising around on the lake and you suddenly smell fish, you are over a big school of white perch. Stop and cast behind you or troll back and forth in the area. They'll hit pretty much any silver spinner. Great eating fish.

When I was a kid, we'd troll for them and as soon as we smelled fish, we'd know that every spinner behind the boat would have a fish on in a few seconds.

We really seem to the best luck for them on live night crawlers (using a drop shot rig with about 18 inches between the hook and the sinker) and yes they are definitely very good eating. We've pulled some pretty impressive perch out of the lake over the years and they hit and fight great. In terms of locations, we generally look for rock humps and/or points off of islands. 20 feet of water seems about right.

I got kick out of that one. :) I'm not disagreeing or challenging you on that one - just found it amusing. I'll have to try that - even if you were just joking.

I have been fishing the lake for decades and have never targeted white perch on Winni (although used to occasionally catch buckets of them 25 years or so ago on Great Bay while smelt fishing through the ice.) but will give your theory a try some time just for my own amusement. ;)

Nose
 

Boils down to "follow your nose" :laugh:

Size
 

Whats the average size of the fish you catch? Size range?

Most of the white perch we get are in the 12+ inch range. Sometimes some smaller ones (say 8 to 10 inches) but typically larger. Usually they are pretty thick as well. Lots of fun to catch. They typically hit hard and try to stay deep after getting hooked.

Cool
 

Looks like I need to find these guys and bring an iced cooler. At 12" filetting is worth it. Especially if I can get my son to do it:D

Just go to the Weirs in front of the public docks and drop a line with a #8 hook and a piece of worm or a small single hook jig with a piece of worm. Just float around till you start catching them. Once you do You will catch as many as you want! Be sure to bring a 5 gallon bucket to carry your fish home. I consider white perch to be the best eating fish in the lake!

19 mile bay is another good area for white perch.

Good Luck!

Dan

Smell of Fish
 

That smell of fish - it's a real thing! When you smell it, you're over a school of white perch.

Again...
 

Today my son caught a single white perch from the middle of a bass school. This one was 14 3/4 inches and my "best of boat" size of 13 3/4 was eclipsed in just 2 weeks. I now have 2 different places to go and catch a single white perch. I would be happy to find a school of 12" fish just to catch a few, or even 2. Oddly this fish and our best bass bite was in only 16'. Lotsa bait tight to bottom from 30' to 50' this morning and no luck for us deep today.

Am I the only one who prefers yellow perch?
Nice white meat and sweet.......not seeing many of them because the white perch seem to be taking over

When I kept my boat at Parker Marine in Alton Bay, there were a lot of yellow perch, good size too, that hung out in the weeds. Chain pickerel as well. Perhaps they have moved into cover areas.

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