How Brosdahl taps into more mid-winter perch

Yellow perch are found throughout most of the upper Midwest into the East – and even out West, moving onto the trophy crust of Idaho’s Lake Cascade. Yes, pretty much wherever you live in these areas, there should be perch to find and catch where the ice is safe. 

“There’s no better time, really, to target perch through the ice than mid-winter,” says veteran northern Minnesota ice fishing guide Brian “Bro” Brosdahl. 

“They group up in schools and pods and are easier to find this time of year,” he added. “Barring the shallow-water bites that occur on the sketchy, shifting ice of river backwaters, lakes are pretty easy to dissect to find fish. Of course, today’s FF Sonar technology has made that even easier.”

Location: Where to start? 

The first place you want to look, says Bro, are basins “with some acreage” and depths ranging from 20 to 40 feet. In these basin areas perch will be roaming the flats, including inside turns with depth changes as little as a foot or two. You don’t need to find steep breaks; that’s not what perch are relating to. 

Ideally, you want to find parts of muddy basins where there’s plenty of food for the fish: typically, mayfly larvae, bloodworms, and roving clouds of young of the year perch. Yes, perch eat their own, they’re cannibalistic to the core.  

And it’s a situation where one fish does something and the entire school/pod follows. If one fish noses into the mud and starts fanning the bottom for food it sets off a chain reaction and they all start looking. So, during a perfect solunar table with the right barometric pressure, lots and lots of fish can be active all at the same time meaning colossal fish-catching for the willing anglers above. 

Specifically in the basins, Bro says that areas with slight cornering edges and small depth changes are best, even better if they’re in the vicinity of sand bars where the fish can pin clouds of bait and gorge. Young of the year perch will be in bait clouds just off bottom feeding on plankton and bloodworms and the perch will just rise up and grab them if they can catch them. But they don’t want to exert too much energy because the water’s cold and that can be a metabolic drain. They’re really opportunists, looking for mayfly larvae, blood worms, darters, emerald shiners, young-of-the-year perch, basically whatever is available in these areas. 

Saddles in these areas can be key for anglers willing to hunker down and wait to intercept roaming pods of perch. While you can play the chase fish game with live sonar, Bro has found that setting up in perch travel areas is the best game; then it’s just a matter of them showing up to bite. 

“Often times, in the time it takes to drop the live sonar transducer and start looking around, I could have already dropped a spoon and flashed in willing biters from a pretty far distance,” he said. “They are inquisitive and looking for food. It’s a little bit different than using (live sonar) to follow and intercept crappies.”

This is something he does intentionally from spot to spot, using a heavier walleye jigging rod with a larger metallic spoon to “flash” an area, drawing fish in from a distance. 

“The bottom of the ice is reflective like a mirror but with lots of different shaped surfaces, so my one spoon flashing higher up in the water column resembles an entire school of minnows or young-of-the-year perch.” 

Once he spies the fish on his electronics he switches to a perch rod like a St. Croix Tungsten Tamer laden with three-pound test and a smaller tungsten jig or spoon, each with a chandelier of maggots dangling as extra incentive. Most times, then it’s game on.

Perch-y Presentations

You don’t need a ton of spoons and jigs to be effective, but you should have fast-falling tungsten as well as slower falling, wobbling flutter-style spoons for their extra action. Bro recommends spoons in the colors of “kids’ ice cream” – pinks, yellows, greens – and with black bars to resemble the baby perch the larger specimens are cannibalizing. Along with that, silvers, golds, and other metallics can be the ticket on some lakes. And he opts for a wad of maggots on the treble, although he says you will encounter lakes where waxworms do better, and vice versa.

“The nice thing about maggots is you can go super micro with your jig or spoon size; they add a lot of bulk, plus scent and taste which can really fire up a school once you catch one. Having so many maggots on your hook means not having to re-bait all the time and catching numerous fish on one run,” says Bro. 

During cold fronts or conditions with negative to neutral fish, Bro does a couple things. He will size down to a small jig with a single maggot while setting up a second rod with a drop shot rig, split shot, hook, and fathead minnow, deployed from a rod holder or iFish Pro. 

In terms of rods, he likes a 32- to 36-inch ultra-light to light rod with a fast tip, outfitted with a size 1000 reel spooled with 3-pound Sunline Ice Fluoro. 

Sorting Through Fish Numbers for Size

Amongst perch groupings, the biggest fish are the alphas and will usually feed first, so once he’s on a spot, he says there’s a good chance of catching those fish from the get-go, typically looking at their size on his electronics. 

Sorting through smaller fish can also be a matter of sizing up in spoon size. 

“Mid-winter you’ll get little pods of all big fish and you can play directly to them using bigger spoons presented much higher in the water column,” Brosdahl said. “For example, today I was in 20 feet of water but the big perch were hitting the spoon six feet below the ice.” 

He continues, “Like if I’m on Mille Lacs or Leech I might size up to a bigger wobbly spoon versus a tungsten and tip it with a minnow head and fish it high up in the water column. That will get the interest of your bigger perch.”

Perch Conservation

Bro advises judging a good spot by the number of keeper fish (9 to 12 inches) you’re catching compared to the smaller fish that are blowing up from barotrauma and can’t be released. If you’re killing lots of smaller fish, leave and find a different spot.

As far as different size structures are concerned, Bro’s a fan of keeping male fish which have more meat due to the lack of an egg sac. 

“You’ll be able to tell them apart easily. The breeding females have puffed out bellies and should be released to spawn, if possible. Same goes for big fish which are prone to yellow grubs that are the byproduct of Kingfisher and duck excrement being eaten by snails and perch eating those infected snails. They’re great for photos, but I release those 13-inchers and bigger. A lot of people kill them thinking they’re infected with the grubs. Don’t do that, the grubs eventually work their lifecycle and vacate the fish. They’re better off left in the water to grow larger and spawn.” 

Awesome Table Fare

With liberal limits on perch and healthy, growing, cyclical populations on most lakes, you can feel good bringing home a mess of fish for the frying pan. Bro’s favorite way to prepare them? 

“I like to run them through an egg wash, into Panko break crumbs, and then dust them with lemon pepper. But here’s the thing. You’ve gotta serve them with tartar sauce that’s been mixed with jalapeno jelly or dip them in Buffalo Wild Wings Asian Sauce. I like some kick.”

Go Get ‘Em

Thinking about a perch trip this winter? Use something like the OnX Fish mapping app to find viable waters near you – or plan a trip to primo destinations like Mille Lacs, Devils Lake, Lake Gogebic, Lake Cascade, the Mississippi backwaters (with guided airboat for safety), Leech, or countless other lakes throughout the Ice Belt! 

With the potential of hundred fish days and tasty evening fish fries, what’s not to love about these great fish?

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