How To Attack The Ice In the 5 Perch Zones of Mid-February
The ‘Dog Days of Winter’ as we would like to call them are upon us and the moods and the locations of the Perch schools have switched from that early ice shallow and structural bites to more wide open areas.
You can still find fish on structure and in some shallower depressions and shelves, but for the most part the schools of Devils Lake Perch have gone deep and in some cases, real deep.
Without having to feel like you are just blindly throwing darts we are going to try to walk you through our system of eliminating barren waters and zeroing in on the Perch schools.
5 Areas We Look To Attack In Mid- February Through Early March
- Small Bays w/Inside Turns
- Mouths of Bays
- Sunken Deep Flats
- Basins Parallel to Contours
- Basins Parallel to Contours w/Points and Inside Turns
Small Bays w/Inside Turns
This was a similar situation to where we found our fish on Saturday. Sun would have been a huge factor but we can’t control the weather.
Also factor in that if you don’t mark any fish near the cut, but mark many out on the mouth, we will explore the entire width of the mouth. That also swings the other way too, if we are marking more up against the cut, we will drill more secondary holes along the whole width of that area as well.
Mouths of Bays
Sunken Deep Flats
This was the location of our outing Sunday and our persistence in drilling hole set after hole set really paid off.
Basins Parallel to Contours
Basins Parallel w/Points and Inside Turns
The Overlying Factor of All 5 Spots
Regardless of whichever one of these areas you decide to attack on your next outing on Devils Lake, keep in mind, none of them involve drilling 5 holes and expecting to find the Gold Mine.
All 5 scenarios if you will, involve multiple hole sets and multiple moves until you are dialed in.
We look at it as a 2-3 day process.
- Day 1- Dial them in, eliminate water and narrow the search vector down
- Day 2- Continue if not found on Day 1 and then hammer Perch
- Day 3- Hammer Perch
If all goes as planned, following those steps will make your outing successful. Hope for sun and a steady barometer.
Good Luck Out There!
