After a week of vacation in the midwest everybody(wife + baby) was ready to go to sleep early. I launched my 'yak at Waverly park around 6pm to see if I could get some perch action before sunset. 2 weeks ago I was getting them on the weed edge in around 14' of water so I tried that first. After catching ~6 5" perch in a row on gulp minnows, I decided that this was not where I wanted to be. I kept one to fillet for bait and cruised around watching the sonar in deeper water. In 19-21 feet i found marks that looked like better sized perch. It seems like the high weeds end around 14-15' deep and then there is some weed cover that stays on the bottom out to 21' or so. I kept on the move fishing the areas that looked good on the sonar and picked up 11 keepers between 7 and 11". Using a perch fillet seems to get the bigger fish like always. I ended up with 11 keepers in ~2.5 hours but honestly spent a lot of time dealing with tackle. I had a couple perch break me off(?) and tying drop shot rigs on a kayak in 1-2ft waves is not fun.

The biggest one was super fat and the fillets were easily 2x the size of the next closest one. Now that the perch are not spawning, I feel like you get way more meat for your trouble.

Sorry for bonus pic of monster bluegill I caught last week on vacation in Michigan.

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