Location: Lake Michigan – Racine, WI
FOW: 16-28
Temp: 69-74
Presentation: Live Bait
One word really describes this weekend in all aspects – HOT. The perch are in, eager to bite, and the sun was cooking anything beneath it.
I met up with my wife for our aniversary this weekend in Racine, and had no other alternative than to pull the boat along and take my Father-n-law out fishing. Its sad that a couple years ago, he lost his vision due to a loss of blood flow to the optic nerve. Left him blind, and very limmitted opportunities to get out fishing. Being an old walleye guy, perch fishing would be any easier task for him to tackle.
We picked up a few dozen large fat heads and dropped in at the racine harbor. The crowd of boats were stacked up along the breakwalls and the “bubble”. For those not familiar with the “bubble” it is the discharge for the sewage plants. 
(stinky place to be in the mornings when everyone flushes their toilet in the morning)
We cruised by checking out the crowds playing bumper boats. I was not imppressed to say thye leaset of the tiny perch I saw being caught. We hit the throttle and ran about 2 miles south from the crowd. We came up on an area of humps ranging from 16-28 FOW. I slowed down and made a quick pass looking at my side imaging unit. Schools of white specs all over the edges of the drops on the humps.
I keep the live bait rigs very simple. Bullet weight set up like a carolina rig, long ultra lite and 4# line. With the Northeast wind we had, the waves were about 2-3′ and slowly building. 
I dropped the trolling motor to drag us along the waves. This slowed our drifts to about half the speed of the wind. And that payed off with great dividends. 
We imediately started to hit some nice 12-13″ perch. Lake Michigan has a limmit of 5 – so being selective is improtant if you want to stay and catch a few.
We returned to the same spot on Sunday. The only change was the spot on the spot. A quick scan with the side imaging, and I could see the perch had moved to the bottom of the pockets. They were a bit more sluggish with committing to hit. Sunday was more of “extra weight” on the line type of hit. But we managed to set our standards at 11-1/2″ or larger. Though we didn’t get any more 15″ piggies like last year, we were very happy with over the 13″ mark.
If you get out on the big pond, remember to keep an eye on the weather, and additional saftey procautions! 
Good Luck!
