It’s that time of the year when the perch fishing on Mille Lacs starts getting hot! The perch are becoming more and more active with the increase in daylight hours. This is one of the factors that I think trigger the bug hatches in the mud/silt areas on the lake. The helgermits start popping out of the perch that your catching signaling the start of the activitity. It’s "jumbo time" on the lake.....more and more people are targeting perch once the calendar gets near the February page on Mille Lacs.
As in previous years we have learned to fish the areas just off the structures where you have the change from rocks into gravel/sandy bottoms and mud or soft bottoms. Many of these areas can be identified on a Lakemaster chip looking at the contour lines. You will notice the tight lines on the break of the reef or hump and as you see the contours become farther apart are the transition areas you will want to target. The depth in these areas will be in the 24-30 fow depending on the location.
The lures that I like to use targeting these perch are many of the same as you have used all year fishing walleye. I like a 1/8 or 1/4 oz jigging spoon in either a chart/green, fire tiger, and gold colors. What I will do is down size in my minnow selection and go with a crappie minnows head on the jigging spoon.
This is also the time to utilize your flasher in locating the perch. It’s a fair amount of hole hopping sometimes to find some active perch. Drilling a few holes and putting the Vexilar down for 10 minutes or so and if you aren’t seeing any marks on the flasher, its time to move on with the Strike master in hand! More holes, more holes....sometime hundreds can be drilled looking for active or schooled perch.
This past Saturday we had the opportunity to do just that. We were out targeting couple of areas that have produced in years past. We found some perch after spending a few hours and a number of moves. The perch were around 100 yards or so off the rocky reef that we setup on off of Hunters Point So. 2mile. In this area we located active tullibee, small walleye and a few perch! We managed only two real jumbos for our efforts prior to the increase in winds on Saturday. Again the weather controlled our plans with fishing.
I hope to see the perch fishing only to get better as we move into this month of February! It’s a great time to get out and get a meal of these great tasting fish! We can only hope that the weather cooperates and allows us the time to enjoy it!!
Last weekI was fishing at the transition off of Banna Reef in 30 fow. 8-10" Perch by the dozen, but they won't take a minnow head. I've switched jigs and colors with the same result. When I switch to larva,the little ones pick them apart. I did pick up one Jumbo on my rattle wheel with a crappie minnow, and strangely enough, a 24" Walleye about 2:45pm???? WASN'T EXPECTING THAT!
Thanks Rick for the report....I normally stay away from using worms, just for that reason. I don't want to mess around with the small ones. Not saying its true all the time. But most of the time!
good report bobber. Been fishing the deep transitons all winter with little succes jigging with minnow heads. like someone stated with larvae lots of small perch peckin at it all day long. seen alot of shiffers but few takers. the jumbos we have picked up come from the rattle reels with small fat heads. several 12" with 1 13"pig. my hooking ratio this year has been terrible with alot of misses. will be back fri 2-6 for more perchin. looks like some nice stable weather coming finnally. good perchin joel
and bobber i would still like to buy u a beer sometime for the help when we talked on the phone.
Great information Bobber, thanks. We will be headed north Thursday morning and hope the report continue to get better.
