'It's Like Eating Potato Chips': The Addictive Fun Of Perch Jerkin'

Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. We earn from qualifying purchases.

---

Brian Brosdahl warned me that we’d have to pick our way through a bunch of little ones to find the rare jumbo. That’s often the case with healthy yellow perch fisheries, but let’s be honest, it’s really not too bad when you’re getting bit on just about every cast.

We recently saw that on a Northern Minnesota lake when an approaching front brought a misty morning that transitioned into a hazy, overcast day. As Brosdahl noted, sunny days aren’t bad, but the dimmer conditions tend to relax the perch.

After about a dozen fish catches, my response reflected the addictive fun of waiting for that next bite: “It’s like eating potato chips.”

Actually, there wasn’t much actual bite anticipation. Nearly as soon as I’d cast, the perch would swarm my bait like vultures to roadkill and elbow one another for a shot at the faux meal.

Admittedly, I overreacted on the first couple of tugs, but once I dialed in the timing, my responses were much more productive.

“I like how you’re easing into the hook set,” Brosdahl said.

Fact is, I was just following instructions. We don’t get a lot yellow perch in my Florida home waters, so my technique is evolving, at best.

Thankfully, yellow perch are a cooperative lot that’ll afford plenty of opportunity to test and refine your game. Heeding Brosdahl’s advice, I quickly learned to discern the indecisive nibbles from the greedy, gobbling tugs.

Target Acquisition

After getting our fill of a morning walleye bite, Brosdahl left the deep, weed-lined hole for a broad flat in 7 to 9 feet. There, the perch fed on small crayfish and the resident minnows.

“Perch love crayfish, so gravel and rocks are a bonus, but in combination with vegetation (sand grass or chara) is ideal,” Brosdahl said. “They like to be in the open so they can watch for predators. They’ll cruise in an out of sand grass and chara pillows. I call it ‘cattle grazing.’”

Keeping the jungle of denser cabbage on our port side, we worked off the starboard and straightaway established clustering zones. Brosdahl kept watch with his Humminbird MEGA Live, but unlike the bass guys tracking particular fish, we got our baits in the community and feeding competition did the rest.

“It does help if a flat has a few features to corral them,” Brosdahl said. “We (positioned) on a drop with a weed edge and used the Minn Kota Talons to park and fish the area where a hive of perch was gathering.”

Subtle Presentations

Rigging Northland Pan-Candy grubs on 1/16-ounce Northland Tungsten Stand-up jig heads, Brosdahl recommended a slow lift and fall presentation that resembles a small leech. I fared well with this action, as well as a low scooting retrieve, a la a Carolina rig.

I got bit while dead sticking the jig, too, but it seems like the more I made those perch chase the bait, the more aggressive they became. And, as with most competitive feeding scenarios, the activity of smaller perch seemed to draw in the bigger ones.

An average cast would feel something like, peck, peck, peck, peck, peck, smack! Patience was key, as you simply cannot go heavy-handed with these fish. Save the bravado for the bass game and rely more on a steady application of physics for perch success. 

Brosdahl’s advice: “You want to reel into them and once you come tight on one, just maintain steady pressure. Some of your biggest perch will pick up the bait while they’re going forward, so you set the hook with the reel and then follow up with a steady sweep of the rod.”

From experience, I can say that closing your eyes or looking at nearby loons helps, as it removes the tension akin to competitive swimmers waiting for the starter’s pistol. When I blocked every sense, except for my tactile connection, and let my fingertips guide the response, I did much better.

It’s easy to yank the jig away from a fish that only has the grub tail in its mouth. And as Brosdahl pointed out, perch are pretty good at sucking in a meal and quickly blowing it back out if anything seems, well, fishy.

To that point, Brosdahl occasionally tips his jig with a small sucker minnow to temp a bigger bite. This yielded one of our bigger perch, but even the meatless version brought plenty of fish — including a quartet of “look at that” ones — to the boat.

Tackle Up

Brosdahl’s 6-foot, 4-inch St. Croix Legend Elite Panfish rod with a SEVIIN GS reel, 8-pound Sunline green braid with 4-pound Sunline fluorocarbon leader provided plenty of firepower without overpowering. Sturdy for their size, perch are more durable than the paper-mouth crappie, but the lighter outfits provide the right balance of jig twitching tip and fish-whipping backbone.

After paying my penance with a pile of puny perch, I came tight on a respectable 11-incher. On their best day, yellow perch won’t out-pull much of what lives in a northern lake, but that’s where the modest gear makes the magic happen. 

“Aren’t they fun on that light tackle?” Brosdahl said with a knowing smile.

No question, downshifting from the often ego-driving “big” stuff that we fishermen like to pursue and giving the little guys a go proves remarkably engaging, if not downright addictive. 

For some, yellow perch is their go-to. To each their own and this colorful species never fails to please regardless of its spot on the day’s hit list.

Corny as it sounds, this relatively simple activity reminds me of why I, and likely many of my angling brethren, first fell in love with the sport. Tiny taps on the line in rapid succession — maybe a red and white bobber throwing ripples on the surface — build an undeniable anticipation for that rod-bending commitment.

Even when you’ve crossed off several trophy fish from your bucket list, the allure of the small but spunky species lives in our hearts like the memory of our first grade school crush. And on the dinner plate, yellow perch will hold their own against most of their neighbors. Some will argue that those walleye fillets top the menu and that’s not an unreasonable statement.

But if you don’t want your perch, I’ll take ‘em.

---