Post by johnr on Jun 16, 2018 13:05:15 GMT -5
We headed out to craddock this morning in search of mega schools of perch. If there’s a creek on the lake that I’d say is always a sure bet, it’s craddock. We launched at 6 and finally found a few perch at around 8am, not exactly what I had in mind! My wife and daughter fished dropshots made up of spoons, flies and worms. My daughter had the hot rod of the morning, hauling in a bunch of doubles and plenty of singles. She got somewhere around 20 before things slowed down. My wife and I spent most of our time helping her take fish off and rebait, so we didn’t do much to add to the total with just a handful each. By 9:30 the place was nuts and the fish had mostly scattered.
I worked with the fly rod when I had a chance and caught some on a scud pattern stripped very (very very very) slowly at ~10’. I also worked a 2” minnow pattern in the same depth range and had a bunch of very nice perch and even a couple groups of them follow the fly right to the boat, but not eat it. The larger perch seemed to be out busting the alewives and small gizzards in “open” water, and that’s what I was seeing but not catching.
Of course I didn’t have my measuring stick in the boat, so we threw them back. Most of what we caught was probably close to 8”. It’s been my experience that the hotter the water gets, the bigger the perch get. Last summer, we didn’t start getting into the mega schools until the last week of June, so they’ll show up soon enough. Actually they’re already grouped up, but they’re not staying put which makes it tougher. They’ll settle down soon.
I think we might search the state park area in the next couple days.
I worked with the fly rod when I had a chance and caught some on a scud pattern stripped very (very very very) slowly at ~10’. I also worked a 2” minnow pattern in the same depth range and had a bunch of very nice perch and even a couple groups of them follow the fly right to the boat, but not eat it. The larger perch seemed to be out busting the alewives and small gizzards in “open” water, and that’s what I was seeing but not catching.
Of course I didn’t have my measuring stick in the boat, so we threw them back. Most of what we caught was probably close to 8”. It’s been my experience that the hotter the water gets, the bigger the perch get. Last summer, we didn’t start getting into the mega schools until the last week of June, so they’ll show up soon enough. Actually they’re already grouped up, but they’re not staying put which makes it tougher. They’ll settle down soon.
I think we might search the state park area in the next couple days.
