Small fish questions

[MonteSS]

Been marking schools of smaller fish lately in 42* water. 30' depth but suspended at about 15'. I believe they are white perch.

We were catching these earlier in the year as they were chasing shad with the bass. They are 12-15" and very gold in color. I was using a small acme kastmaster spoon. Are they in fact white perch?



I make these lil 2.25" minnows. Whould they work well to try to get these suspended fish?



Should I put them on like a 1/16 oz jighead? Vertical jig or under a bobber? Dropshot on a #6 hook. Dropshot with the 1/16 jig as the ds weight? Try the spoon again.

Thanks...Bill

[pjmcla]

Looks like a white perch.  Are the secondary gill rakers real sharp?  The meat on a white perch is tasty and does not contain the blood line a white bass does.  Lake Greenwood S.C. was full of them back in the 70's early 80's.  What lake are you finding these fish in?  Suspended fish are typically the toughest to get to hit on a regular basis.  I worked them quietly vertically fishing like I did suspended crappie.  Your bait is a good choice as would a small fry, the 2.5" stinger wutz-it or carrot, or any of the 2" pan fish baits .  A 1/16th - head with maybe a split shot up the line a little to get the bait down. Pearl, silver, or chartreuse are all good colors ( sometimes black ).  Mark your line with a marker at the spool when there is 15 feet of line out from the tip of the rod.  Slowly work the bait just above the fish.  not below.  Marabou crappie jigs should work as well.  Live minnows under a slip cork set above them will work. 

[matt]

it looks like a white perch if it had same black lines it would be white bass but I think its white perch

[MonteSS]

Thanks. I have been fishing this lake (Lake Monticello in Virginia) 10 years and they suddenly appeared this spring. We are thinking they may have come from the river but not sure how. They are thick and very firm bellies.

They are competing with the bass for food and we have had a prob that there are too many bass already and not enough forage. The lake commitee added sterile grass carp 6 years ago and the size of the bass declined since. Nowhere for the baitfish to hide. Its a lake with many older people with pomtoon boats and the shallow coves got pretty choked with weeds in the summer. The lake needs fertilization too but no way they will let us turn the water green.

I will try those fishing ideas and see how it goes. I know the bass are near impossible to catch when they are suspended.

There is another local elecric lake that the state manages that has real nice bass, crappie, and sunnies that I will try too. I was there last spring when they shocked it and their catch was impressive

....Bill

[Jeff Little]

White perch for sure.  We have them all over Prettyboy and Liberty reservoirs in Maryland.  The smallmouth, largemouth and most of all stripers (Liberty only) eat the heck out of them.  I actually took one and made a plaster of paris two part swimbait mold.  I froze the fish in a zip loc, popped his eyes out, cut the caudal fin off, glued a swimbait tail on the dead fish and made the mold in a small baking tin.  I used oxygen tubing and some lead inside to make a pass through for a treble hook near the anal fin.  About one in three swam straight. 
As far as targeting them, I can't offer much, but lots of guys out there are glued to their depth finders and real specific on how fast (slow) they troll.  I do ask them how deep they are seeing them on a given day.  That depth seems to correspond to the right depth to structure fish for bass.  I know that I see larger dark marks on my depth finders about 8 to 12 feet below the schools of white perch.

[susquehannasean]

Guys up here catch them numerous ways, easiest is to use a crawler harness, such as a Lindy, I make my own.  We use walking sinkers bewteen 1/2 and 1 1/2 oz.  Do not use a whole crawler, just a piece, and start trolling around 1pmh and vary till you fnd the speed they want. Blade colors vary depending on light penetration.  Here at Lake Marburg in PA, chartreuse and silver are the standards but orange and gold have their days.  Blade size varies as well, but the most consistent producers are size 1 and 2 Indiana blades.  The 1 1/2 weight seemed to produce last year best because the harness would get through the school before the motor was spooking some of the fish being straight down below the boat.  Some river guides have switched to fishing for white perch in the summer since the smallmouth fishing has degraded so much in the last couple of years.  They will fill coolers on a regular basis.  I fish for them 2-4 times a year when the kids want to get out and just catch fish after fish.  Mind you these tactics are for sping, summer, and fall.  The fish we catch are from 6-12".  We also get walleye, largemouth, yellow perch, and bluegills this way.  Most times we will be fishing suspended fish over 40-80 feet of water.  Guys also vertical jig but I havent had the success with that has trolling has given me.  Hope that helps, good luck.

[MonteSS]

Thanks all. I went out to the small pond today and got a 12" crappie on the first cast. I used the 2.25" minnow on a 1/16 oz jighead. Only one I got in 2 hours. I also got a 24" 4# pikeral on the same bait which was fun.

Thanks for the tips....Bill