After a tough bite at the Stoddard Ice derby on Saturday, I was determined to redeem myself. I figured I’d check back on a spot that kicked out a personal best perch a few weeks ago and see if they are still there. My dad decided to join me and I think he was glad he came. After setting up the camera revealed a good school of 8″ bluegills in the area. After dropping our baits down the perch came cruising in. I had about a 10-1/2″ fish looking at my bait and suddenly it backed off. 
I soon found out why, as a pair of lips came in from the side and sucked in my diamond jig/waxie presentation and a big perch was hooked up! After a good battle on the 24″ ultra light, my second biggest perch of the year was through the hole, a beautiful 12-5/8″ fish. Several more perch came to the hole between myself and my dad, including the nice 11-1/2+” fish my dad is pictured with. After the perch bite dwindled, bluegills became the main focus. Using a green diamond jig with a waxie, I had fish in my hole constantly. A lot of the fish were in the 7″ range and a few were under the standard keeping size. But several of the fish were over 8″ making for a fun battle. At the end of the 2 hour ordeal, we easily iced 20 keeper fish, all of which were released. Not bad for mid January.
Sunday while working, I couldn’t stop thinking about big perch and how addicting they are to catch. When I got done around 1:15 I already knew that I was going to be going after the perch again. I was fIshing by about 2:30 and found similar results to the day before. A few nice perch came right away on a forage minnow spoon with a minnow head, including a nice 11-1/2″ fish, but again the big ones moved out around 3 and I was forced to target the gills again. As the temperatures fell and The wind increased, I noticed that the gills were getting tight lipped. They no longer wanted anything to do with the waxie. I made a switch to something they haven’t seen from me yet, a trimmed black ratso tail. The action of this bait was more than the gills could handle and I went from zero gills on the ice to about 20 in the last hour of light. Making that switch turned a tough day into a decent one.
Sunday…
A couple of quick back to back fish (released)
