Catching the biggest Perch in the school

Was out yesterday Perch Fishing. The lake I fish is loaded with fish from 4 -13 inches.
A buddy and myself must of caught 70 fish but only keep 7 keepers.

I’m wondering if anyone has any proven strategies on catching the bigger Perch in the
school? I know some people say Perch school up in like sizes but on my lake alot of times
there all mixed together. We would of moved around more but it was -2 with 15 mph winds so
it was a set up the shack and hunker down kind of day.

Try free falling a big crappie minnow on a light jig. It’s painfully slow in deep water, but it works for me. They’ll hit it on the fall. The little ones will usually leave it alone.

If you don’t get a taker, let it hit bottom, raise well above the school and repeat. It works on my lakes anyway

I don’t know if I’ll label it as proven. Cuz sometimes, you just can’t keep the small ones off.

Anyways, I’m not afraid of using 1/8th oz to even 1/2 oz lures to deter the smaller fish. I will say that the frequency of catching bigger perch are, they don’t mingle with the really tiny ones.

When I camp in one spot…well I just sometimes just catch’m all…and cull.

Throw some bigger panfish spoons or raps down to them so the little ones can’t get it in their mouths but the big ones can.

Try the #4 and 5 Rapala Rippn Raps….
I use them all the time and still catch a few aggressive smaller fish but more often than not the bigger fish come to the top !!

Definitely helps to have a flasher or sonar to pick which perch you want in the school by keeping it away from small marks. On my home lake I have found the larger ones to stay close to the bottom during the day. Morning and evening they will move into the shallower parts of the lake and the small perch will stay behind. don’t be afraid to give a smaller offering if they lake had more bugs then minnows.

Try some bigger rippin rap styled baits

If you want to pick and choose what fish you catch then I recommend getting and underwater camera. You can pull your bait from small fish and let the bigger ones take it.

Less keep away using the Rippin Rap or crappie spoon.

I can remember perch fishing in the fall and sometimes we’d have to cull through 20-30 fish before we got a keeper sized one. At that point, we’d move and keep moving until we got onto some bigger perch. Eventually, all the big perch were fished out and there weren’t any left so we stopped fishing that lake. My advice would be the same.