South Haven Perch 8/24

[danthebuilder]

My uncle came to town and we went perch fishing in south haven along with everyone and their mom(perch tournament today). Here is what we did.

Started at 7:30ish. After the tournament people all left. No waiting at pyles or launch.

Fished the trailer park a couple miles north. Moved 3-4 times in the area. Caught 2... Slow...

Went north 6-7 miles north of pier near the northern pack. Caught a handful + the biggest perch I ever caught. Started in 40 fow and moved 5-6 times and drifted twice & fished our way into to 25 fow. Probably caught 10ish by this time. 25 fow was a hard hat area. One boat was into the gobies. The gobies were pitched at someone in another boat. The batter had a tennis racket and they were flying through the air. It was very entertaining. Fishing died we drifted for a bit and then we went South.

It was around noon we moved south of pier to deerlick creek just outside the pack in 35 fow. For those of you who aren't familiar with the area. 2-3 miles south of town there is a very nice red house right on the edge of the lake is built next to deerlick creek. Got very lucky where we put our anchor. Finished out the day there. It was fun.

We setup 2 rods each and they hit all 4 rods at once. They would leave for 15 minutes then come back and hit all 4 rods. Lots of doubles. Lots of throw backs. Decent number of big fish. For a bit people on all sides of us were not catch anything and just staring at us. We weren't doing anything special. No secrets. Minnows on 2... size 8 Snelled Aberdeen Hooks 1 & 3 feet up from the 3/4 oz sinker. Only thing we did was cover many miles and move what felt like a million times to find that spot were we got lucky. If I was any of the neighboring boats. I would have left and found better fishing. Eventually, the fish stopping visiting us so we decided it was time to go in.

Kept 35.

Also saw 2 20+ pound kings brought into the cleaning station. Someone also was kind enough to give me the spawn for pier fishing in the winter.

Ramp coming in was a circus. People were grouped up around the corner. If you know how to launch or retrieve a boat in under 45 minutes... You are not the norm. Luckily, everyone somehow stayed away from the jetski/VIP ramps and I had no waiting.

Overall, if you wanna catch some perch. Now is that time to go. And please don't keep those small/borderline ones unless you kill them accidentally removing the hook. Those are for next year. If you only catch small fish keep moving it happens to everyone. You'll find em eventually.

[Far Beyond Driven]

We fished deerlick from 10-11 am with 2 misses. Got to the empty launch, docked my 14' perfectly with my 10 year old holding the rope. Only other boat there launching has to launch next to me and not another dock. After about 6 tries he gets it in the water somehow not hitting us. Guy drops one of the ropes. When we left he was flagging down a kayak to get the other rope with the boat sideways across the end of the dock.

We stuck around to see if he needed help but that's how they fired it up and took off.

[flyman013]

Thanks for the perch report! Nice job on keeping the eaters and not the small ones.