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Initial Bottom Response Often Times Is Your Best Indicator For Perch Success

Hardwater 101: Part 4 originally posted on October 4th, 2016

The First Look is the Best Look!

When fishing our ‘hole set’ lines, we are on high alert at the initial drop. If we are over fish, the most active ones are going come to the lure quickly and often times bite right away. By being prepared and ready, often times we can pick off 2 or 3 easy ones before the task of enticing a finicky perch needs to begin. Also, as my lure is dropping, my eyes don’t leave the 6-foot zoom. I’m looking for any sign of flutter from that bottom. If we are on a gold mine it is an eruption but sometimes more finicky perch are just a flutter and then they settle down to the bottom again. If you are not paying attention you would never even know that there is a docile school of perch right underneath you that is going to go off when the barometer hits 30.00.

 This was one of those docile schools that turned into a frenzy once the barometer was right, I had fished this hole set earlier and marked some real docile Perch and Crappies, came back to it when the barometer had changed and they were super aggressive. I make sure that on my initial drop down each hole I am attentive and alert to that flasher.

Fish the Aggressive Fish 1st

We are always chasing that ‘Christmas Tree’ on the flasher. If that bottom erupts into colors when our lure gets close to the bottom, bingo, you’ve hit it. That feeling never gets old, it is also kind of on the rare side so if we don’t see that, we go to plan B, which is check as many holes as fast as possible for aggressive fish.  Sometimes there are 2 or 3 aggressive fish and we want to hammer them quick, take them out and then move. If you hit 1 or 2 perch right away and then it goes dead, MOVE. Don’t sit and try to milk a hole, if there were 2 active perch in that area, chances are there are more active perch in the vicinity, just not all bunched up. We have put together pretty good Perch Days by hole jumping our ‘hole sets’ and picking off a couple active fish here and there. If we had stayed in one hole and tried to milk it, we would have probably ended up catching half of what we actually ended up with. Once we have done a pretty thorough job of picking off the super active Perch, we go to our record keeping. As I have been working my ‘hole sets’, I will have been logging all pertinent information. I like detail when I am working an area, time, weather, barometer, how many marks in each hole, if any bit in that hole, and if we caught any fish in that hole.  Now, I will go back to the holes that either I popped a couple aggressive fish in or ones that had less active fish in them and I will start to work them a little bit. I will throw some more subtle presentations at them.

The Super Aggressive Devils Lake Super Mega Jumbo

When initially fishing hole sets we are looking for really aggressive fish so we use really aggressive presentations. Some of my favorites for this are:  Buckshots or Varmints in Gold or Silver tipped with minnow heads. Aggressive Perch will hammer those obnoxious lures. They can’t resist it. I have camped out on a Perch school with a gold Varmint and minnow head and slammed 20 Perch as fast as I could get the lure back down to them. 

This was one of those 'hammer them as fast as you can get it back down there' and it was over and done with, 40 Super Mega Jumbo 2-man limit in about 20 minutes. 

The Not so Aggressive

Once that aggressiveness leaves the school though, the real work begins. The spikes and wax worms come out and we either downsize the Buckshot or Varmint to a smaller size or go to a more silent lure instead of a rattler. If they really turn into “yo-yo’s” we go to the tried and true stand-by, Gold Genz worm tipped with spikes. 

As I have said before, you must have these three lures with you when you are chasing Jumbo Perch on the Big Devil, they are a must!!

Since This Writing: Lures That We Have Added To Our Arsenal

Since we wrote Hardwater 101: Part 4 last October, we have added these lighted treasures to our arsenal.  They are awesome lures that really work great, especially in either muddied, stained water or the deeper depths of Perch habitat.  We strongly suggest you add them as well.

Good Luck Out There!

Hold On To Your Rod!!

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