“Nuisance” fish often saves the day
Twenty or so years ago, not very many people knew what a white perch was.
Starting with its misunderstood name, the white perch is not a crappie and it’s not a true perch either. Years ago, white perch migrated in from saltwater to fresh to do their procreational business, then headed back out to the brine. Sounds pretty similar to its first cousins, the striped bass and the white bass, doesn’t it?
In practice, white perch have a very gregarious nature. They move in schools, will eat almost anything, and taste – dare we say it – better on the table than either white bass or stripers. With all those attributes, the white perch’s Achilles heel is that it doesn’t grow very large. Most white perch the average angler will encounter is less than 8 inches in length. A 1-pound white perch is something to brag about. And a 2 pounder will make the state record book.
The white perch also has a dark side. Due to their adaptability, they have found their way into nearly every body of water in both North and South Carolina (with a little help from anglers), where they out-compete many of the native species and have been accused of reducing game fish numbers by preying on both their eggs and fry.
Accordingly, white perch are not considered game fish and no limits apply to angler creel limits when fishing for them in either state.
Fanbase is growing
Anglers fishing for largemouth bass, crappie, stripers, and bream don’t particularly care for white perch, owing to their small size and propensity to attack baits intended for other species. It’s only been in recent years that the white perch has developed its own following. Many of these anglers are catfish anglers first. They want the white perch to use as bait for blue and flathead catfish. But a growing contingent of white perch fans are out there.
Catfish guide Rodger Taylor from Rock Hill, S.C. shared some of his insights on patterning white perch.
“Just like any other fish, I start out looking for baitfish,” said Taylor. “At the end of the summer, shad start to mass up and move into the creeks and just about everything else, including white perch, fall right in behind them.”
Taylor said he does best by bottom fishing for white perch even on the days when he can see them schooling on the surface. His year-round target depth to find white perch is 20 feet. He finds them at this depth on long points or humps near deeper water. His ideal location would be a long tapering point that was 20 feet deep at the end of the point before it dropped off somewhere about halfway down a major creek arm.
“These fish stage on these points and when a school of shad comes by they’ll tear into them wherever they are. And then I’ll move back to the points to go again,” he said. “In fact, I do better on bare points with no cover that don’t have bait holding on them. It’s just hanging around nearby.”
Taylor said it’s a game of feast or famine. But with so many perch to be found, it’s not a long wait till the next feeding time.
Miniature striper fishing
“I’ll fish right on the bottom and when I catch one fish, I can usually catch 15 or 20 fish before they move off. Then I can either stay put and wait for them to come back or go hunt another point. We often refer to this as miniature striper fishing.”
Taylor fishes for white perch using a homemade Sabiki rig that has two small gold No. 4 or 6 hooks on a stiff 3- to 4-inch leader about a foot or two apart. He uses a ¼- to ½-ounce bell sinker at the bottom to hold the rig tight. This causes the leaders to stick out from the main line. He baits the hooks and drops the rig to the bottom, using several rods set in rod holders. He said when the fish move in, it’s all he can do to keep one rod baited and in the water before he gets a bite.
“This is classic bottom fishing,” said Taylor. “In fact, I don’t even reel in when I feel the first bite. Just set the hook and let the rig load up with whatever number of hooks you have on the rig.”
Fast action on Lake Russell
Guide Wendell Wilson from Elberton, GA is another white perch fan. He’s a little bummed because the white perch have pushed out the yellow perch that inhabit his native Lake Russell on the SC/GA border. Rather than sulk, he’s learned to adapt.
Wilson prefers live medium minnows fished vertically on light tackle using a single or double No. 2 or No. 4 light wire gold hook on 6-pound test line to catch white perch.
“I might start out with two rods and set them in a rod holder. But once you get into the fish, you can’t fish but one rod. The action will be that fast,” he said.
Before he decides to deploy rods, Wilson wants to make sure he’s in an area with fish. He claims the presence of baitfish at depths on or near the bottom will determine if he’s going to fish a particular location. And he’s adamant about marking fish on the graph before wetting a hook.
“If I don’t see any bait, any shad, down deep, then I’m probably not going to fish there,” said Wilson. “As long as the bait is more than half way down to the bottom, let’s say I’m looking at 40 feet of water, and the bait is at least below 20 feet, that’s fine. I’ll stop and fish if I see enough bait. And that’s true even without seeing any fish.”
(Photo by Phillip Gentry)
Lake Gaston guide’s white perch strategy
According to famed catfish guide Zakk Royce from Henrico, N.C. on Lake Gaston, catching scads of white perch year-round is not a difficult task. Royce said as August rolls over into September and throughout the month is one of the better times to catch bigger perch. He said the typical perch pattern through the year is to find them congregating on long points and humps in very typical schooling fish fashion. But as the water cools they move.
“I look for them in the backs of creeks in 10 to 15 feet of water when the weather starts to cool off a little at night,” he said. “Not all creeks are as good as others. I find the ones with sandy bottoms are best.”
The most likely reason for the seasonal move is the number of young-of-the-year shad that emerge from cover and can be found scattered all over the upper water column during September. Because the bait, and the predators eating them, are so shallow it’s nearly impossible to mark fish on the graph. Royce said if he’s perch fishing on a calm day, he can often see the perch schooling on baitfish, along with other predator fish. Since the perch are not stationary as they would normally be during other times of the year, he’s developed a trolling tactic to catch them.
“I troll crankbaits for them,” said Royce. “I’ve heard some of the crappie guys around the country do the same thing and I use the same 200-series and 300-series crankbaits they use.”
Using a three-way swivel, Royce attaches a crappie jig, underspin jig, or small safety pin spinnerbait adjusted to run above the crank on a shorter leader. He varies the amount of line out from longer at the rear of the boat to shorter as he goes up the side of the boat.
“The longest line might be 100 to 105 feet back, which dives to 10 to 12 feet,” he said. “Then each progressive line out is shorter in 20 to 25-foot increments.”
Royce also recommends changing crankbait colors frequently until you find what they like. Some days the bright chartreuse and pinks work while the natural colors won’t. And vice versa. He can’t explain why. He just changes colors until the fish decide. As far as the jig/spin color, he said it’s hard to beat white.
As for the perch themselves, Royce separates them into two piles — the fish under a pound that he uses for catfish bait, and the fish over a pound that he’s going eat himself.
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