Details

Published: 16 January 2017

By Louie Stout

Lake Michigan Perch Anglers Need to Adjust Approach

Last year’s southern Lake Michigan perch fishery had a lot of guys scratching their heads. The fish would show up one day, then gone the next.

Well, Hoosier biologists Brian Breidert and Ben Dickinson may have an explanation and a possible solution.

“The fishery has changed,” said Breidert, “and fishermen have to change with it.”

He believes anglers who are accustomed to catching yellow perch in the same areas year after year might want to fish deeper, and more importantly, pay very closer attention to the water temperature.

Before we get into that, anglers should be reminded that the perch population is a fragile thing.

We had good year classes in 2003 and 2005. Those fish provided some good fishing a few years ago, but things slowed down. The bigger fish got hammered pretty good and subsequent year classes weren’t so hot. The quality perch population dwindled.

However, 2015 produced a bonanza perch hatch and those fish survived the winter of 2015-16 quite well. If you perch fished much last year, you caught a lot of four inchers. Those were the 2015 class.

Dickinson, who spent a lot of his free time perch fishing, saw it, too.

Read more ...

Details

Published: 03 January 2017

by Louie Stout

You could say that Danny and Terry Moran of Osceola go nuts over fishing.

Or perhaps it’s the “nuts” that drive them to fishing success.

And they use them to catch bluegills. Not the nuts, but the tiny worms inside them.

They discovered years ago from an ol’ uncle that tiny grubs thrive inside those nuts and they make great fishing baits, especially when panfish are looking for bitty morsels, such as during the ice fishing season.

“They also work well in the early spring when the bluegills are up around the lily pads,” said Danny.

Read more ...