Skinny Water, Fat Perch

I write this report coming off of one of the shorter hard-water seasons I’ve ever fished. This would be the first time I’ve wet a line in March when there wasn’t fish-able ice somewhere in the vicinity I like to roam. I’m sure I needn’t remind folks that a year ago today we were still wading in snow, counting down the days until June. But I’m an equal opportunity fisherman; so to my fellow hardwater fanatics, when ice gives you lemons – go open-water fishing. Or something to that effect. It just so happens that there’s a few shallow backwater perch bites I’ve been meaning to revisit that haven’t gotten the recent attention they deserve. To be honest, most years I’m squeezed between ice and turkey hunting and get there well after it’s over. Not this year!

Children and bobbers are like peas and carrots. Few things go together as well, and fewer yet are as instructive. The teachings of the streambank or lakeshore surely must be some of the greatest of all, with a whippy rod, 8lb. test, Flu-Flu’s, and crawlers being the equivalent of a young-person’s first school supplies. Class was in-session this Friday afternoon, and all the lessons a small cork can impart were being devoured by my two boys. Patience, anticipation, excitement. Boredom, hastiness, frustration. You take the good with the bad, and at the end of the day you get to look back at the end-result quite favorably knowing full-well that fishing is a lot like life. Of course that makes great days like this with good fishing all the more worthwhile.

The pattern was simple, as it should be. Bank fishin’ in shallow backwaters less than 8’ where perch and a whole slew of other species were patrolling for food. Crawlers out-produced minnows, both fatheads and crappie-sized offerings. Center channel areas were preferred, and if your cast made it to those depths, your bait would not be left alone very long. Small places can often hold big fish, and probably to no surprise these are the very areas I like to target. We took a chance today that fish would not be there, but had we guessed or chosen incorrectly, what would we be out? We didn’t take the boat. I love technical fishing, and the challenges of species that scatter at the sight of knot with too much tag-end, the wrong-colored lure, or too fast a retrieve. There will be time for that. But today, the cost of minnnows, dirt in our fingernails from some freshly picked crawlers, and a nice walk in the woods is all we had invested. An acceptable price no doubt, even had we never picked up a fishing rod.

These perch were large too! No tape was brought, but the bait cooler was 11” across the top, and we had several fish well over that mark. We even had a fish somewhere over 13”es, and a little boy who will never know how big his first river-perch really was. Unlike their sleek and long lake-cousins, these backwaters bruisers had both height and depth, not to mention a snub-nose and a fat knob on their forehead. That didn’t matter to the kids however. After an hour or so of watching bobbers, with plenty of fish caught and the bite slowing, finding rocks and burying each other in reed-canary grass was more important than the features on any fish, freakish though they may be. And as I’m beginning to learn, that’s OK too. I certainly don’t fish for fish’s-sake, so I suppose it’s unrealistic to expect them to do the same. On the drive-out, not even to the tar-road, I glanced back to see the youngest, eyes forced shut by all the fun of the day, with the slightest hint of a smile on his grape kool-aid stained face. Though I was nearly snagged in the head twice, untangled countless rats nests, and examined willow trees far more closely than I’d ever hoped to, if they had only half the fun I did it’ll probably be one of the better outings we’ll ever do.

Joel