Hi all, I’m Dan the CEO here at Dominate Fishing and I’ll guide you through this execution plan. lets face it… perch fishing can be tough, but believe it or not some of the best catches of perch can come ice fishing. During the winter perch remain active and if you can find them… you can catch some good numbers. Now don’t get me wrong, perch can be finicky but with the techniques we are going to cover in this execution plan, putting some of those golden slabs on the ice is going to be a whole lot easier.

Here’s how to get the most out of the content in this Execution Plan,

1. Read the entire EP once – Read through this entire EP.  Don’t execute on the steps until you have finished reading the entire EP.  This will help you understand the progression of the steps and put them into context.
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Lastly, here’s how to use the Execution Plan interface.

1. Progress Bar – The Progress Bar shows you the percentage of the Execution Plan you have completed.
2. Check boxes – Click the check box to indicate completion of a Course Step or Course Section.
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4. Course Steps – Each Course Section contains multiple steps.
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Jumbo Perch are a very coveted fish, many anglers want to catch them… but locating Jumbo perch can be very tricky. One of the biggest reasons for that is that perch are very nomadic… they are constantly roaming around, and they can be anywhere. Perch do make seasonal moves and knowing them can really tilt the odds of finding them in your favor.

Keep in mind this entire course is designed to help you catch jumbo perch… not the little perch that are easy to catch pretty much all over the lake. Also keep in mind that with perch the saying “where there’s little ones theirs big ones” is not always true.

Perch school by size so if you are sitting hammering a school of little perch waiting for the big ones to come… the big ones may never come because there are no big perch in the school.

There are a few things to be aware of before we get into perch winter seasonal movements.

First off you can find small perch in many lakes but big perch usually don’t grow in small streams or small lakes… except for pothole lakes in areas like the Dakotas.

Second you can find big perch on almost any bottom composition at any depth… we are going to talk about seasonal movements later in this course but there are always exceptions.

Big perch are not structurally orientated… you can find them near structure or they can be cruising a main lake flat.  This makes it hard to predict where perch are on any given day so be prepared to do a lot of moving.

In the following lessons we will take an in-depth look at each phase of the ice fishing season.

The toughest part catching jumbo perch in the winter is finding them, and the reason its so tough is because they can be anywhere… and just because you find them in one environment on one lake doses not mean that will be a pattern that works on another lake… although it could, here lies the conundrum… finding the pattern on each lake.

On any lake you could have some perch relating to rock, weeds, muck, and some in the sand. Some could be shallow while others are deep.

The main factor in determining where jumbo perch are is food, and food can be found on anyone one of those locations.

Perch can find food on humps, points, weed lines, structureless flats and reefs.

Basically, this means you can find perch in shallow weedy bays, shallow reefs, points, rip/rap, inside and outside turns in the weeds, main lake and mid lake structure or mudflats.

Ice fishing for perch during first ice can be very fun because perch are active. It’s a lot of fun when the fish bite as fast as you can get your lure in front of them…

At first ice perch like weeds. Look in bays, coves, and weed flats… also in channels that produce safe ice.  The best weeds to fish are not too thin but not too thick. Perch tend to prefer moderate to lightly weeded areas.

Weedy bays like the image above are great early ice perch locations.

During early ice these areas are loaded with food, and the big perch will be in there till the weeds begin to die and the food leaves. Small perch might remain in these areas all winter if there is oxygen.

The best places to look are directly in the weeds, open pockets in the weeds, and on the weed edge. Unlike crappie and other panfish the perch will usually be close to the bottom.

As the season progresses and the ice gets thicker and some snow covers the ice the weeds start to die. At this time big perch will start to leave the shallows and drop into slightly deeper water.

The small perch may stay up in the shallow weeds, but many of the bigger perch will move to the base of the first or second drop off outside the shallows where they were.

The key is the food… if the food stays in the weeds, so will the perch. Usually there is enough snow and ice cover to choke out the sunlight and start killing the weeds a month to a month and a half into the season and the perch leave. If that doesn’t happen the perch might stay in the weeds a lot longer.

Most years and most lakes however the big perch will leave the weeds and move to the bottom of the breaks(dropoff’s).

The hard to soft bottom transition in a very high percentage spot.

The bottom of these breaks are loaded with insect larva, minnows and tubificid worms.

As the winter progresses a growing number of big perch will begin to roam the main lake mud flats.

The jumbos scatter into smaller schools as they roam the mud looking for food. This time of winter, mobility is the key. I like to move around a lot looking for active fish.

It can be a tireless game… checking spots and catching nothing. The trick it to keep going till you eventually find the fish.

Key contact points are rock piles, or humps located in the mud flats… changes in the bottom can be great spots.

Check the deep edge where the mud meets the rocks or where the mud meets the hard bottom of the hump.

If there are no structural changes in the mud flat… just big expanses of mud… you need to keep drilling and moving till you find the fish.

A lot of times however (but not always) these massive flats will have subtle changes in bottom content or depth. These areas will attract baitfish and in turn perch. The problem is a lot of the subtle changes are not on lake maps. You have to stumble upon them to know they are there.

A great way to find these spots is to drive over the area during the open water season and watch your depth finder…. Locate them during the open water season and gps the spots so you can go back ice fishing.

The tendency of schools of jumbo perch to roam almost aimlessly big expansive mudflats can discourage many anglers. This is one of the characteristics of jumbo perch that make them so hard to catch.

It is intimidating to look at a lake map and see a huge area of mudflats and know that the perch could be anywhere.

This is why a mobile approach, and the use of a map to locate high probability areas is important. Remember you don’t need to find all the schools of active perch, often finding one or a few is enough to catch a nice mess of fish.

I like to fish with a buddy, each of us will bring our own auger so we can cut twice as many holes and check them twice as fast.

If you only have one auger you can have one guy drill while one guy checks the holes.

Once you find a school stay one it… many anglers fishing mudflat perch will sit on a hole they are catching perch out of, and then when the perch leave, wait for the school to come back…

That’s a bad move…

A lot of times the school wont come back. The best approach is to continue drilling holes and move with the school.

Perch are not like crappie where they may be constantly roaming around in an area… perch will “keep going” and not circle back.

If you find some type of structure that attracts fish… you can sit in a hole or a few holes and wait for schools of perch to swim through.

The difference is when you are fishing a structureless flat there is nothing to bring a new school into the area… you would be just hoping a school happens to swim through.

The key is checking a lot of spots looking for these fish and knowing a lot of times there is something on the bottom that is holding the active fish.

Often the little change if bottom content or depth or variation in lake contours that is holding these fish is not shown on a lake map…

That is why some of your best scouting for perch spots is done before the lake freezes with your boat and sonar.

With your boat it is much easier to comb these mud flats and look for subtle changes in depth, bottom content, or cover.

For example, if you find a small hard bottom area in a vast mudflat, that is a definite contact point for big perch.

A lot of the good potential spots for locating mid-winter perch are found on lake maps and all it takes is some drilling and hole hopping to find them.

In reservoirs often the best spot for looking for big perch is in the main river channel. The main river channel is where the actual river used to be before they dammed it up and crated the reservoir.

During mid-winter don’t be afraid to fish deep. Perch can go deep, reel deep at times if that is where the food is. There are lakes where perch can be caught in 70 plus feet of water if that is where the best food is. I don’t know how long the perch stay down there because there is probably no oxygen, but they go down there to feed.

I have heard perch can use oxygen from their swim bladders to allow them to stay in deep no oxygen areas for an extended period.

The real key to locating and catching mid-winter perch is to identify what type of lake you are fishing, what depth, structure, and cover it has… how far into the winter it is and then check the most likely spots with electronics.

Stay mobile and keep checking spots till you find an active school.

Late ice is a period many perch anglers wait for. Perch are often aggressive and relatively easy to catch… but not always. Late ice might be the best time of the year to catch numbers of jumbos. Perch feed heavy during late ice in preparation for the upcoming spawn, shortly after ice out.

Late ice perch can be found in several places. Bays, coves, and channels are great places to look. One of the keys to finding late ice perch is to locate where they will spawn shortly after ice out. Chances are good the perch will be near or in their spawning grounds during late ice.

Perch spawn in shallow water, depending on the cover they are spawning in, it could be real shallow. Perch mainly spawn in bays, coves, channels, on reefs, humps, and points.

Perch prefer an area with a hard bottom and cover… they need something to stick their eggs to. Down timber, like trees, logs and sticks work well, weeds are good and in many lakes bull rush also makes good perch spawning grounds.

Find first or secondary drop offs into the main lake adjacent to these areas to hold perch. Some perch will stay deep till the ice is off.

In many lakes when all the snow melts off the lake and fresh water is draining into the old holes and cracks in the ice, perch will move back up into the weeds.

By late ice weed beds in spawning bays can be loaded with jumbo perch. Drill holes all over the weed beds and fish each hole looking for active fish. Many times, you will catch a few perch out of one hole then have to move to the next to stay on active fish.

Mud flats below the first drop off coming off a spawning area can also be good. The key is to keep drilling holes until you locate the active schools.

fish cribs on drop offs adjacent to spawning grounds can be another excellent spot for locating late ice perch. Perch use these cribs for cover and a contact point for finding food as they stage before they make a move to their spawning grounds.

The key to finding jumbo perch in the winter is mobility. You need to fish fast and move often to find them.

Jumbo perch are harder to find than other panfish because they can adapt to a variety of habitat’s, and they are nomadic.

When fishing crappie, once you find a school there is a good chance that school will stay in that area, especially if they don’t get a lot of fishing pressure.

When you find a school of jumbo perch there is a good chance, they will be gone the next time you go back.

Not always though, there are spots that always seem to hold perch or at least hold them for longer periods of time. Weeds are a good example, when you find perch in the weeds there is a good chance they will be there for a while.

When you find areas, like the base of a main lake hump, those areas can be a contact point most of the winter.

My approach to finding big perch in the winter is to look at a lake contour map before I even fish the lake and locate at least 5 (if possible, small lakes might not have 5) or more spots that look prime for holding perch at the stage of the ice fishing season I am fishing.

Then I will start with the area I think is the highest percentage spot and start there. Or I will start with the spot I can cover the fastest.

For example, if I think the perch are out in the mud flats… that’s a big area, so I might try an underwater hump or point… something I can cover fast.

Sometimes knowing where the fish are not, is very valuable in finding fish.

For example, at the time of this writing I was just out on a lake looking for big perch. I started where I had caught them in previous years in a bunch of nice cabbage weed beds. I checked the weeds and found they were dying (this was mid-winter on a heavy snow year).

I checked another weed bed on the opposite side of the lake and same thing… dead weeds. From there I moved out into the mud flat and popped a few series of holes… nothing but small ones. This lake had a huge mudflat… chances were good that somewhere in the mud there were perch but the mudflat was to big to cover in the time I had so I tried a new spot.

In the vast mudflat in this lake was a big underwater hump. A great contact point I thought. I tried the base of the hump where it met the main lake… got a few but nothing special. From there I shot over to an underwater point with a sharp breaking shore… and that is where I found them.

It took me a few hours to try all these spots but staying persistent and mobile was the key.

A lot of fishermen will go to a spot, set up camp and the fish there for the day. If thy don’t get any they just say “the fish weren’t biting today” a lot of times that is not the case… a more true statement would be “the fish were not here today.”

The key is to try high percentage spots till you find them.

On some lakes there are not a lot of good-looking spots on the lake map… for example a lake that is a bowl shape… all shorelines gradually falling to the basin which is one big area of mud flat. In these lakes the best approach is to keep drilling till you find a school. Once you find one stay on it as best you can for as long as you can. In these conditions it is very likely that the school will constantly be moving.

In a situation like this it is important to fish fast. When you have a bait down the hole the perch have something to keep their attention, so they can stick around. When your bait is gone, because you caught a fish the perch lose attention and move on. So it is important to get the fish un hooked and back down the hole as fast as possible.

Another effective approach it to tag team a hole when it has a school of perch under it. Once you catch a fish have your buddy fish the same hole while you are unhooking your fish that way there is always a bait down there. The action will usually be fast so neither one of you will have your bait out of the water for long.

As we have stated many times throughout this course, the key to locating jumbo perch is mobility. Tip-ups are not very well suited for a mobile approach.

There are times though that tip-ups can help increase your catch.

After you have located a school of big perch. You can use tip-up’s or tip-downs to get more lines in the water and catch more fish. You can also use them to cover more ground and track where the fish are.

For example, if you are fishing a point you can spread your tip-ups along the base of the point… where the slope of the point meets the mane lake.

In a mudflat you can use them to cover more area and to track fish movement.

To rig a tip-up tie a mono leader to the main line which could be standard tip-up braid. Use a small hook or jig tied to the leader. Baiting with a fathead can help keep some of the small ones from biting.

When fishing in mudflats where there are not many big schools of perch, more small pods, but when the small pods of perch come through, they are big… I have baited my tip-up with a jig and 2 wigglers packed on the hook.

One of the keys to using tip-up’s is you need to use ones that have a spool that spins very easily. You do not want the perch to feel tension when they take line or they will drop it. I like to use beaver dam tip-ups.

On tip downs I usually use a small hook, or a small treble hook baited with a minnow, waxworm or wiggler.

Jigging is in my view the best way to catch big perch day in and day out. With a good flasher unit and a jigging rod, you can quickly and effectively cover a lot of ice.

I like different rod’s for different situation. I like a stiffer rod like a medium or a medium light when I am fishing hard baits like a jigging rap or a bigger spoon. I also like a stiffer rod for fishing deep water. Because most fishermen use mono for ice fishing, in deep water you have a lot of line out to get to the bottom. Mono has some stretch so with a stiffer rod with more “back bone” you get better hook sets in deep water.

Some noodle rods transition fast from the noodle tip to the backbone of the rod… those rods work well in deep water also.

For shallow or mid depth, I like to use a noodle rod for fishing jigs or live bait. If using a light power panfish rod you can add a spring bobber to detect light bites.

Lighter rods offer better control and sensitivity. Sensitivity is often important for perch fishing because a lot of times thy are light biters… sometimes so light it is hard to detect on even the most sensitive rod.

There are a lot of quality reels out there that will work well… my recommendation is having someone who works at the sport shop you go to, and knows reels recommend one to you. There are constantly new and improved reels hitting the market and it helps to have someone who keeps up with them point you in the right direction.

On many of my rods I fish a Pflueger President 20 series.

For line I like 3-6 pound test mono. In some cases I have tried lighter ice lines… after trying many different lines 3-6 lb test is my go to.

I like to use the 6 pond when I am using jigging raps and other hard baits mainly because you can get bigger fish on them and I don’t like break offs with expensive lures.

Is some occasions when the bite is very light I will go as light as 1lb ice braid.

Selecting the right lure and jigging presentation can seem complicated but with a little practice it is easy.

The trick is to let the perch tell you what they want… you need to observe how they respond to your lure and presentation to fine tune what works best on any given day.

For example, you start with a #2 Rapala jigging rap which is an aggressive lure… snap it up about a foot and let is drop back down and sit. Pay attention to what the perch do… when they come into the angle of your flasher, where are thy in the water column? Do they come at the level of the bait or just below it? If they come at the level of your bait that would suggest they are active feeders.

Do thy smash the bait? If so, in a situation like this using a heavy bait you can fish fast which will help you maximize your catch.

But sometimes the perch will be glued to the bottom and won’t come up… or they will slowly come up but then as you jig get spooked.

In such a case try switching to a spoon with flash. A Bay de Noc Swedish pimple or a Kastmaster will work. I would put a wax worm or a spike on 2 of the 3 trebles or on one on all three.

The flash of the spoon will attract the fish. Give the lure a sharp jerk about 1 foot then let it fall back to its starting position. When it has fallen back down jiggle the spoon softly enough so the treble with the wax worms juggles back and forth.

That is the action that will get the strike a lot of times.

If the perch still won’t hit or won’t even come off the bottom try a plane jig with a minnow, wax worm, spike, or wiggler and let it sit with gentle jigs up and down every few seconds. Leave some long pauses on the bottom… this is when you get a strike a lot of times.

Another trick is to have 2 holes drill side by side. You can actively jig a spoon to attract the perch over then have a jig and waxworm sitting there to get the finicky biters to hit.

If the fish still won’t bit repeat the process with other lures, different sizes and colors… the trick is to find what the fish want.

On a real tough bite sometimes the only way to get perch to bite is dead sticking live bait a few inches off the bottom.