Middle March Perch Trip

I was planning on heading over in the Middle of March on a Perch Fishing Trip. I have never been on the lake and was wondering where some good resorts would be to stay at? My wife is coming with me and it needs to be someplace respectable. I will have my own Shack, atv to get around and hopefully find some perch. Does anyone have any recommendations for me on where to go? Thanks

Anywhere other than Mille Lacs if you are looking for perch. Full day you might get lucky to snag 5 or 6.

Leech or Winnie you will fill your pail if you are looking for a bigger lake to fish. Otherwise there are lots of smaller lakes that can be hammer time also.

What he said about Mille Lacs. The reports are not good. Most likely a waste of your time from everything that I’ve heard. I’m heading to Winni this weekend. Will post report on that forum.

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What he said about Mille Lacs. The reports are not good. Most likely a waste of your time from everything that I’ve heard. I’m heading to Winni this weekend. Will post report on that forum.

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I’ve got some PM’s from others saying the same thing, Dont go to Mille Lacs because the Perch population is low. I was just up to Winnie two weeks ago, fishing was ok. Couldnt really get around because of all the snow.

Thanks to everyone for all the input.

Even on a weekday, hundreds of perchers would be on Lake Mille Lacs at this time of year—years back. Now? What a shame that it has come to this…..

What the heck happened in a year?? Wasn’t there almost a minor perch explosion last year on Mille Lacs?

Not that I know of…or have heard of or have memories of seeing. Maybe little perch–under keeper size? If so–they got eaten fast.

I’m curious, what do you blame the lack of Perch, on Steve?

It seems to me the Perch population crashed around 2001 as well.

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I’m curious, what do you blame the lack of Perch, on Steve?

It seems to me the Perch population crashed around 2001 as well.

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Here is my take on the lack of perch:

In around ’99/2000, the week before the Opener, jumbo perch were washing onto beaches all around the lake, in big numbers. Locals had never seen this before and first blamed the nets. But DNR biologists (from Aitkin) said something about a virus that was exclusive to the lake’s adult perch that hit and killed a huge amount of them in just days.

So now you have a much smaller/almost wiped out genetics-wise perch population. ( as years went on after that spring, small perch showed up in big numbers on the camera’s everywhere and hook and lines and all thought in a couple three years it would be back to normal-but they never grew up and still today are 4-5-7 inches so I see that as a different strain that took over after the die-off)

So you have a small adult perch population to spawn and hold up the numbers of perch. Then you build a huge amount of big adult walleyes and smallmouth. The small perch numbers can’t keep up and actually fall off even more as the small numbers of young of the year get eaten faster than the few big perch left can reproduce.

Now you have a very small group of adult perch…and no way to build it without somehow balancing the predator numbers back to normal and maybe even having to add another forage fish to make up the difference in the short term.

It’s a mess…a scary mess.