I had a couple of hours on Saturday and decided to run to down to the lake and see if I could locate any perch schools a pick up a few for a meal. I spoke with a person at the launch who had fished the lake earlier in the week and let me know he had found them around 40 to 50 feet down on the slopes. I ran over to the west side of the lake and started looking for fish 40' down, slowly working my way deeper until I located a few in about 65' of water. The schools in the area were not that large and with the wind picking up I had a difficult time staying over the top of them. I finally decided to get out of the wind and headed to the east high rise of the 520 bridge. This turned out to b a good move as I quickly located large schools of fish right around the 50' mark. Most of the fish were in the 8” to 9” range with a fair number of 10+ inch fish. The larger fish tended to hit the jig I was using on the drop, so watching for a change in the decent rate was key.

I prefer not to anchor and I don't have an electric trolling motor with a spot lock feature, so I utilize ¾ or 1 oz jig to get down quickly. To keep my boat in one spot I back troll, with my kicker, into the wind. This in not recommended if the waves are significant as you'll swamp your boat. But in mild weather is gets the job done quite nicely. The jigs I like to use are made by P-Line. They are inexpensive and come in a variety of colors. I've used Crocodile spoons, Kastmasters, Swedish Pimples and all will get the job done, but you'll end up loosing a few to the bottom especially if you utilize a trebel hook on the bottom of the spoon. I rig mine butterfly style, which almost eliminates the bottom hook ups and tip the hook with a bit of bait. Perch meat of course works great. Normally I also have a second hook rigged up on my leader, drop shot style, baited with a bit of perch meat as well.

So at the moment the perch appear to be in the 50 to 70 foot range and will probably continue to drop in depth as the water temps cool. All the perch I've caught this year have been in excellent shape and they appear to be doing well as winter approaches.

---