White Perch Advice

[bushwacker]

Going to try and get in to the white perch this summer. I have a dock on the lower BW in Lumpkins Marina. The kids and nieces will be at the lake this weekend and would love to get them all on the boat one evening or morning for some fishing fun. I haven’t really targeted them much at all but have caught a few while fishing for striper. Any advice would be appreciated. I have read up on some tactics so I will more than likely be drop shoting and using small jigs. What are some go to areas I can target. Thanks for the help, tight lines.

[johnr]

We've done real well at times right in there at lumpkins so start looking there. Craddock is always good, the state park area coves will generally hold some, coolbranch has always treated us well and bull run as usual will have some. 5-20' is where to look.

[bushwacker]

May 21, 2019 6:31:28 GMT -5 johnr said:

We've done real well at times right in there at lumpkins so start looking there. Craddock is always good, the state park area coves will generally hold some, coolbranch has always treated us well and bull run as usual will have some. 5-20' is where to look.

What kind of structure in 5-20'? Points, drop offs, trees, what seems to be there area of choice?  In cool branch are you looking out in the main channel or in the coves? Thanks John

[choochoo]

Gently sloping, clean bottoms have been best for me.

[johnr]

I echo what Choo Choo says. Thats a good 85% rule. Its rare that I target/catch them on the main channel proper. Im the main channels of creeks though, we do find them.

They move, a lot! Some days they're packed in coves, and 24 hrs later they're out on a point or in the main creek channel. Just gotta look till you find some or fish along drifting worms till you find some.

Within 5' of the bottom, usually.

Now there are exceptions of course. Weve found them suspended in creeks over 40' of water. Coolbranch has very little of the structure Choo Choo spoke of, but yet weve had some of our best days in there. We've plucked them outta the tops of trees in bull run 20' deep. And I've mistaken them for crappies on brush in the upper ends.

Search coves, backs of creeks, anywhere that typically holds ample small bait. Find a mass of fish or a cloud and dropshot a worm into it. If they don't eat it, it's not perch.

You can also try casting clean shorelines with small cranks, spoons, and inline spinners. Flashy and fast to draw reactions. This time of year they can still be shallow and spread out.

[hambone]

I second everything ChooChoo and johnr posted. I primarily fish for them in bull run, basically because it’s convenient to where I launch boat and I always find them somewhere. I generally always start at back of bull run where the ski course is, I’d say 85% of the time I will find some perch there, but you gotta be early because the ski club shows up around 830 or 9 most mornings and they don’t care if you’re fishing or not they just start skiing.....🤨🤨 I’ve found that a lot of boat traffic will scatter the perch. So when they show up I leave. I generally use worms, gulp minnows, and cut bait on drop shot rigs. Some days one thing works better than others. As far as locating them on fish finder I just look for schools that resemble gizzard shad, sometimes it’s shad but a lot of times it’s perch or maybe they just mixed in together 🤔 I start catching them the best from mid June to October, they seem to stump me after that. Also I like mud banks, I think they hold more perch.

[bushwacker]

Thanks for all the help guys I will be sure to keep you all updated on my findings throughout the Summer.