Perch fishing continues to be the same. You need to pay attention to detail. Finesse is the name of the game. Patience is rewarded. Sometimes jumping all over the place hopeing to find the right school of fish is fruitless.
There are huge schools of roaming perch that have more or less set up shop in an area. These fish appear and disappear on your electronics all day long. You need to wait them out and be ready for them when the move in. Miss a hit or three and you’ll have to wait for more to reappear. Catch the majority of your bites and you will be successful.
You’ll need to setup your portable..hopefully it is an Otter. Careful watching of your line and rod tips plus keeping your hole and line free of ice is very important. You’ll need to keep your gloves off and hands free.
OK the finesse perch fishing seminar is over. What is working now are spikes in the usual way plus minnow under a slipbobber. Use small to medium sized fatheads, clip of their tails to keep them from moving too much. Suspend them on a very small treble hook on a two foot dropper under a 1/16th oz jigging spoon. I use ice buster bobbers to get an almost neutrally bouyant presentation that sinks when a perch sniffs it. This rig seems to be outfishing the regular methods by two to one most days this week. You also seem to catch the bigger perch in the school. When the going gets tough, you need to show them some meat.
I may not have much of a report for this week since I’ve been searching for new spots. I found several promising ones but did stay long enough to fish them hard to really pattern them out. Mostly eliminating water. We are expecting a lot of snow and wind tonight and Sunday so traveling on the ice will be fun.