GREAT OUTDOORS: Yellow perch bite heats up on Lake Erie

While most 6-pack charter and head boat captains continue to target the abundant walleyes that remain in the area for their customers, some anglers on "private" boats are electing to test their luck with yellow perch. For the past two weeks, reports have been trickling in about success ranging from catching a few to collecting easy limits.Some have found perch eagerly biting in several familiar locations including from Cedar Point into Sandusky Bay; Catawba Cliffs; around Green, Rattlesnake and Kelleys Islands; the edge of the Camp Perry firing range; all around the Toledo water intake; and between the Toledo Lighthouse and the Maumee River shipping channel.Since nobody knows how long this bite window will last, anglers interested in squeezing some perch fillets into their freezers ought to be strongly considering a targeted perch trip soon.Even though sampling trawls done by the ODNR-Division of Wildlife have shown that significant hatches have occurred annually since 2013 in the Western Basin, these tasty "Erie Gold" treats have been reluctant to bite on the bait minnows traditionally used during the fall months that providedgenerations of anglers reliable, fast action.Whenever perch fishing is slow, unfounded blame gets directed toward overfishing by commercial netters; the ineffectiveness of golden shiners as bait; and accusations that the Division of Wildlife fisheries biologists are overestimating the size of recent perch hatches.Some of the Division of Wildlife and angler explanations for changes in perch behavior include reduced populations of emerald shiners, which has led to a diet shift to invertebrates, especially spiny water fleas; perch schools getting broken up by marauding walleyes; low dissolved oxygen concentrations near the bottom that force perch to suspend higher in the water column; and their deliberate avoidance of harmful algal blooms.Successful anglers who have checked the stomach contents of perch have confirmed seeing spiny water fleas, along with small gobies, snails, zebra mussels and young-of-year fish.Not too coincidentally, the peak opportunity for perch fishing has lately been a few weeks in July and August while water temperatures are above the spiny water flea's threshold and their densities are lower.There are many options for getting to the perch. The most economical method for getting on the water is to phone a friend or schedule a trip with one of the local "head boats" that take walk-on, single customers or large groups of passengers.For these, potential anglers can contact Tibbels Charters in Marblehead (419-734-1143) or one of the three outfitters in Port Clinton including Fisherman's Wharf (419-734-9002), Sassy Sal Charters (419-732-7755) and Shore Nuf Charters (419-734-9999) by phone or go online tolearn about their perch fishing opportunities.A call to each outfit mid-week confirmed that they were all splitting their efforts between walleye fishing and exploring opportunities for yellow perch, with plans to place more emphasis on perch beginning in August. With a bigger investment per angler, groups of 1 to 6 can hire captains with smaller, speedier vessels that can search more locations, provide greater comfort and offer finer scale personal attention.The 2018 hatch is now mostly 7-9 inches long, according to ODNR-Division of Wildlife Sandusky Fisheries Research Station Supervisor Eric Weimer. Some older fish remain from above-average hatches in 2014 and 2013. Specimens from the good 2019 class generally run about 6 inches, but someapproach 8 inches. Those from the 2020 hatch will obviously be too small to keep.The hurdle of finding minnows has been easier this year. At press time, the bait stores have been able to obtain a mix of large and tiny "pinhead" emerald shiners, the preferred species, or a mix of these and hatchery-raised golden shiners.Although populations are down significantly from their peak numbers several years ago, multiple jumbo yellow perch have recently been caught by anglers while casting weight-forward spinners high in the water column for walleyes near Conneaut, according to sources operating there.