Monona perch bite

This has been a tough year on Monona for numbers or consistency. I had a good morning on Saturday with 18 nice big keepers and not one short fish. Bite shut off when the sun came out. Fish were aggressive and liked a dead sticked minnow 5 feet off the bottom and also liked a purple ratso on a dropper with a spike or two. I had the whole lake to myself. Only in Madison will people pay to park and go to the Expo on the best fishing day of the year.

Thanks for the report

Yep Whiskerkev, while you were out there catching perch, I was in the Alliant center talking about fishing. I did learn a few good things and got to talk to the owner of the Fishing resort in Canada where I’m going this summer. Also bought a new trolling motor. I got it two days ago. I’m excited to try it out. It has the new I-pilot feature.

Jerry,

Congrats on the new TM. I’ve been drooling over those for a while. I wish they would push back the Expo for a few weeks. I’ve been to almost every one of them since I moved to Madison. The perch didn’t cooperate on Saturday with a lot of shorties for our effort.

Thanks Whiskerkev, I haven’t got the trolling motor hooked up yet. I’ve got a problem. It’s a 24 volt motor so I need to have two batteries. The battery well under my front deck is only made for one battery. I’m going to have to probably cut some metal and have a new box made to hold two batteries and hope it will all clear the bottom of the deck when it’s in place.
Are you still fishing the lakes or are you done for the ice season? I’m done and waiting for open water to go cat fishing.

Saturday was the last ice trip for Kevin and I. As he said, the fish were pretty uncooperative. One decent perch and a whole lot of little ones. We go to Red Wing for 7 days next week. I know my thoughts are completely on open water now, as are Kevin’s I’m sure.

Good luck with your boat modifications.

Indeed open water is where I’m at. I had a similar issue with my old power drive. I ended up putting a new compartment in my Xpress to hold two batteries and my 6 gallon tank. Give a holler if you want to do some catfishing out here. From your avatar, you seem to be doing alright. There are some monsters in Lake Mendota and my biggest problem is finding guys to go.

Mendotaeye and Kevin, Hope you have a good trip to Red Wing. I’d like to meet you guys sometime. I love to fish and Mendota has been my main focus last year. I caught a lot of really nice channel cats, a few really nice blue gills, a lot of white bass for eating and only a couple of walleyes. My biggest channel cat last year was 20 lbs 12 oz. That was fun but I was out by myself at night and had trouble netting him because he was a fighter. Quite often, I have to go out by myself because my friends are either not into fishing or they’re busy so I’d love to have someone else who loves fishing as much as I do to fish with.
Here’s a picture with a nice cat.

Nice fish and I know that spot.