Tiller

The day started off as the previous 2. Hours in and miles covered with 0 to show. Starting to question why I’m even trying. Ripping up new spots and areas I normally don’t look them, At about hour 7 when almost all hope was lost, coming off of a hump into a sand flat was a mega and they weren’t moving. Could easily have gotten my 50 but called it quits at 25. Landed 4 bonus eyes keeping 1 of them. They needed a little encouragement with a perch eye tipped on a buckshot spoon.

I talked to the Dec survey kids both days and they said no one is catching any perch and quite a few guys are targeting them. Things could change any day now tho. Ill be back at it again tomorrow trying off Hamburg

Over the last two days, I’ve put in over 16 hours, from silver creek to east of sp, depths from 40-78fow. For a total of 0 perch. Haven’t even bothered to drop a line anywhere. I’ve never seen this before

An ice maker was the best investment that I’ve made, bleeding those fish right on ice and making sure they stay packed to ensure freshness total night and day difference. I on average use 15lbs of ice in the cooler and haven’t bought a bag in the last three years. Getting back in late little too tired, they keep fine to process the day after.

Fished Saturday 9/27/25. Headed way east to avoid the eyes. Had a flurry first light of good size. That died out and took it offshore running thru countless spots and depths. Nothing going. Back inshore more west, handful of my milk run spots that were completely void. 1 last spot to check before heading in. jackpot 44-46fow. Size was excellent and the bite was steady. Picked 20 real quick and called it good enough. Hopefully these cold nights coming up start kicking it off. Seems a few weeks behind imo

Add in glow colored jigging raps especially in low light conditions. Can’t go wrong with spoons either. I’ve had great success with the og classics like silver, gold, copper kastmasters and Swedish pimples. Shiver minnows and moonshine jigging spoons. Aswell as my personal favorite perch spoon the buckshot. Colors like hot orange and yellows, golds and browns and smelt patterns. Modern day spoons made in tungsten help you get down faster when the school is hot producing faster limits. General weight range I’m shooting for is 1/4-3/8oz depending on how aggressive they are and conditions such as waves and currents. Light braid in the 2-6lb range with 15’ of 6lb fluro leader on a 4’ UL rod is my standard.

For perch on Erie I exclusively use the 5/16oz 2” jigging rap. Top colors year to year consistently being the gold/balck, silver/black, rainbow trout, and goby colored. With my best color which has taken more perch then all the other baits combined being the parrot colored blue/chartreuse. That day I was using the clown color which I normally don’t use very much.

Fished yesterday evening, first decent perch bite of the fall. Not stellar but good. Found some large schools from 68-71fow suspended about 10-15 off bottom. Average size was good with some real fattys mixed in. Plain jigging rap was the best bait. Reeling up to suspended marks produces bonus walleye catches.

The mission was perch this morning, cruising my way around the 70s, hitting 77fow to find an extremely dense holding of eyes over a small footprint. Pressing the spot lock button at 7:10am, down the 3/8oz gold kastmaster went. By 7:42am I had my 6 in the box. Some dandy’s in the 24-26” range released and a whopper at 28” landed that swam back happy. Back to the perch search heading shallower. From 70-66 good numbers of perch schools roaming fast. You’d have to stay on the trolling motor, soon as you’d get one they would be gone. All in all took home my 6 eyes and 10 perch, With an absolute unit of perch @14” exact. Great day on the jigging rod and beautiful fishing weather

Tried a few times prior to this last blow after boxing out on eyes. Schools that I found are smaller and it’s been hard to stay on them. Out of Catt 55-75 I’ve mostly been looking in. Hard to get around all the eyes out there

First trip back out in a little while, off Catt mixing it up from the normal eye routine, out targeting deep staging steelhead. 70-90fow little west of Catt. 55 temp was down 40’. Put an absolute wallop of them, full spread of spoons on divers 50-60fow down. Took about 15 eyes accidentally all released. Landed over a dozen chrome backs anywhere from 4-8lbs. Orange and blue being the best colors

Oh be nice, we definitely got a little off topic for a reports thread lol. Start a new thread or even send a pm, I’m always interested in learning more about our fishery.

Fishing can be great while the population is in decline? There’s still perch out there. I don’t get how you don’t understand that. Yeah there’s a lot of bait but you don’t think perch and eyes are competing for it? You haven’t really proven anything I’ve said untrue. Can you prove how the perch population is not in decline?

Perch declines are a combination of a lot of contributing factors, and the walleye boom might just be a reasult of that. Pure fact tho is the perch have been in a steady decline for some years now. You can’t dispute that

I would not say at all whatsoever they are feeding on perch, it’s more about competing for food sources. The perch late summer and early fall (relatively new) are now found suspended and spitting up fleas which was almost unheard of years ago

At the end of the day the survival rates of these fish by anyone is speculation, studies or not there are still flaws. Just like when they said the best walleye spawns were when the lake completely froze over, but the past several years proved that to be incorrect

You’ve been fishing Eire 60 years you’ve already witnessed it. Also Ohio has dropped their perch limits for certain zones for Lake Erie. With stellar walleye, bass, steelhead, and laker fishing something has to suffer, the perch numbers.

It’s not about catching so many fish, we may just have to disagree here. Just because I’m 27 doesn’t mean I haven’t spent countless hours out there or have done my research. I do agree some fish will suffer delayed mortality but the rate of successful releases is higher than expected and catch and release can be successful

It’s all one lake and one cycle. The walleye population will drop and the perch numbers will rise. The past repeats its self

2013-2015 were record highs for perch caught per angling trips. Those years also bolstered more anglers targeting perch then walleye even thru the months of July and August. Fish numbers can be down but the fishing still be good. Limits are getting lowered for perch in other states

I don’t understand your logic, could you tell us what depth in your opinion is safe for catch and release fishing? There’s a lot of studies that have been done on deep water fishing that include transporting fish miles away from the catch site, how is that a real life situation. studies are coming out rapidly supporting the survival rate of deep caught fish. Most of the eyes are caught in the top section of the water Column which would suffer little to none pressure change

Please let me know, I’m curious to know exact counts, I know they been dropping consistently since the walleye boom. Walleye are cool but I’m a diehard perch guy

This past Spring was incredible but perch numbers are still down to what they once were. Erie is well and alive brother enjoy out there

And when the walleye population was low the perch fishing was outstanding. I’m not justifying anything as I personally quit fishing once a full limit is achieved but I personally believe catch and release is more successful out there then you believe

And catch and release fishing doesn’t? Gut hooked fished, taking countless pictures of fish, poor handling. What about the eyes, sheephead and bass caught while early season perch fishing. There will always be mortality related to any fishing. The key is to be smart about what you should keep and what has an actual chance at survival post release