Ice Fishing: Yellow Perch

As the leaden skies of winter obscure the sun, hard core ice fishers drag plastic sleds of gear across the frozen surfaces of lakes in the Kootenai Country Montana region. It is mid-December, and visions of sugar plums are not necessarily what is dancing in their heads. Instead, it is dancing jigs and deep fried perch fillets...

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The Yellow Perch (Perca flavescens) is one of the most prized ice fishing delicacies. Commonly just called perch here, these fish generally prefer warm to cool clear lakes with moderate vegetation. Perch have many small teeth, but no long canine type teeth. The anal fin has two spines and 6-8 soft rays. Perch bodies are moderately deep and flat sided. The sides are characteristically yellow to yellow-green, and have 6-to-8 vertical bands. These fish have two separate dorsal fins, the front one having spines, and the rear one with mostly soft rays.

Yellow perch in our neck of the woods generally feed on aquatic insects, insects, snails, freshwater shrimp, plankton and other fish. Common techniques for ice fishing this species include fishing jigs, jigs with flashers, and small lead jigs. The jigs are used in combination with pink or white maggots, grubs, waxworms, perch eyeballs, pectoral fins, or a strip of perch belly. Try different depths as although yellow perch may be in shallow waters, the lunkers may be feeding closer to the bottom. Popular jigs such as Rembrants, Rat-Finks, Swedish Pimples, and Mister Twisters are successful on local lakes. Color combinations that do well include phosphorescent or metallic lures that are gold-silver, green-chartreuse, orange-yellow, or pink-white.     Jigging is a multi-faceted art, and there are many proven methods. Jigging, shivering, and slow retrieve with intermittent jigging may work fine. Some fishers believe that to catch it, you dance it. Bottom dancing and intermittent jigging sometimes works. Imitating a wounded fish can work. Others try a thrumming rod method. It’s fun to develop your own technique that works for you! Some experienced perch fisher men and women look to work the areas where a transition occurs from harder to softer bottom materials. Perch bites can feel like subtle thumps, so keep your rod tip down and ready to strike! It’s not a bad idea to keep your reel handle in the up position in order to make a fast first crank after hook set.

Many pursuers of perch try jigging multiple baits, or even two handed jigging. If the fish are biting, don’t waste anytime. Re-bait quickly and get the jig down the hole and presented. Yellow perch may travel in schools, with pods of a dozen fish or so at a time. You may be able to roughly time them, know about when things should be heating up again, and be ready.

Otherwise, the quiet times out there winter ice fishing for perch are not wasted. They can be times to look forward to a meal of deep fried perch fillets, to contemplate the rugged beauty around you, and to appreciate the abundance of fish and wildlife in Kootenai Country Montana!

(Author, Brian Baxter’s, Note: Reference Game and Fish Magazine)