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Ice Fishing for Perch

During the cold winter months, ice fishing for yellow perch is a great pastime. As soon as the ice is safe to walk on, anglers can't wait to get out there. Excellent catches of perch can be made while ice fishing; sometimes producing more fish at that time than in the other seasons. Some locations allow an angler to fish with two rods while ice fishing. This is a bonus.

While ice fishing, you have a good opportunity to catch jumbo perch as well. My definition of a jumbo perch is twelve inches or longer.
One thing about ice fishing is that you must dress properly to brave the elements if you plan to fish without an ice-hut. If you dress properly, you should last the day, if you don't, you may last an hour. It's better to over-dress than to under-dress. Setting up a wind-break also helps to keep you warmer. The best comfort of all is of course ice fishing from a heated ice-hut.

When ice fishing for perch, it's good to know that perch can be caught roughly from six to sixty feet of water depth with the bigger fish tending to be in the deeper water.

Perch bite best during daylight hours. Night time catches of perch are rare. Fish are on the bite at first crack of dawn with slower action around noon and then picking up again later on in the afternoon. Some days are better than others as far as bites are concerned.
When I was younger, I've watched perch through the hole in the ice in crystal clear water (eight feet deep or so) and there were days where they totally ignored the bait. They would swim close to it but wouldn't even stop to look at it. At other times I've seen the majority of perch that came close to the bait eagerly take it.

When ice fishing for perch I prefer ice fishing rods rather than hand lines for starters. I spool-up with 6 pound clear monofilament or fluorocarbon line. My set-up consists of a bell sinker and two snelled hooks.

I use a 1 ounce bell sinker, no. 8 Aberdeen hooks with 6 inches of snell per hook.

The hooks are spaced twelve inches apart. The bottom hook is spaced four inches above the sinker.

I usually use emerald shiners as bait since they're readily available in my area and they‘re also a major food source of the perch. Two and a half to three inch emerald shiners are the norm but I'll use four inch emerald shiners as well to target jumbo perch.

Here are my reasons why I choose to use these items for my set-up:

I stay away from colored monofilament or braided lines as perch get suspicious of these.
The six pound line used as the main line and the snell is of thin diameter and transparent so the perch are not spooked by it. I've tried four pound test line but I find it too thin and impractical. It tends to break quite easily under ice fishing conditions.

The one ounce bell sinker is fairly heavy and I like it because it gets my bait down fast and keeps the main line more vertical so there is less chance of tangle with other lines if the holes are close together. Another reason is that it enables me to detect a bite easier. I do this by keeping the sinker just off bottom, supporting the rod and watching the rod tip. The extra weight allows the rod tip to bend easier with even the slightest bite. The rod should be supported near the reel to allow for more rod movement to distinguish a bite.

Another method to detect a bite when ice fishing for perch which I have used is that I would allow the sinker to touch bottom; set the rod on a support; tighten the line then let out about one inch of extra line. I can detect a bite by watching the slack line straighten.
I'm confident that the sinker doesn't scare the fish away. I've had perch actually follow my sinker while slowly reeling in my line so I'll take that as an indication that they aren't afraid of it.

I like the thin no.8 Aberdeen hooks when ice fishing for perch because they're small, light (thin diameter wire) and the shank is long enough for me to easily remove it from the fish. The hooks' small size doesn't spook the fish. The hooks' lightness allows the live shiner bait to move more freely and its' thinness allows the bait to live longer because the impaling hole is small.

When I first start ice fishing for perch, I hook the emerald shiner through the base of the tail - almost to the very end. The reason for this, is that the emerald shiner can move vigorously which I purposely want it to do to help attract the perch to my line.

Perch, for the most part, stay close to the bottom so I would be ice fishing such that my sinker is off bottom about one to two inches.

If I don't get a bite after a while, I jig my line up and down to make sure the shiners continue moving. When I do get a bite, I wait a couple of seconds before setting the hook to allow the perch to take the shiner down to the hook. Perch will almost always take a emerald shiner head first.

As soon as the first perch is caught, I quickly re-bait and drop my line in as soon as I can. Assuming there are others, I want my bait down there before they move away. That's where the heavy sinker comes in to play - getting the bait down fast.

After catching my first perch though, I hook the emerald shiners in a different manner when I re-bait.

This time, I hook them so that the hook point is directed inside the eye socket (below the eye) and have it come out directly below the eye through the opening between the neck and the gill cover. What this does is that it still allows the shiner to move freely for the most part and stay alive. Now the hook is located at the head-end of the shiner and that allows me to immediately set the hook when I get a bite. One drawback with this is that if you wait too long before setting the hook, there's a chance that the hook may be swallowed.

Emerald Shiners can be hooked through the lips or through the back as well. I've also hooked them through both eye sockets at once.

Now when I catch another perch while ice fishing, to be quick I try to remove the hook with the shiner still on, and quickly drop it back down the hole. If there's no action, even after jigging the shiner, I'll re-bait.

Sometimes what I'll do if the action slows down, is, I'll take an extra spool of monofilament line and tie three live perch together through the mouth and gills covers and make a small loose loop so that they have some freedom to move. Also to the loop, I add four or five one ounce sinkers. I send them down to the bottom from another hole located two and a half to three feet away from the hole I'm fishing from. Then I tie the spool end of the line to something to make the line tight but the sinkers must remain on bottom. The objective here is that hopefully other perch will come around to check-out the tied ones and hopefully take my offering.

There are times where you may steadily catch perch after perch because you were fortunate to find a large school that stays put. Most of the time though, it's a scenario where there are small pods of maybe two to five fish that are continuously on the move.

When ice fishing for perch, moving from spot to spot can certainly pay-off sometimes. If I don't get a perch bite within an hour or so, I'll move - usually to deeper water. For me, transportation from spot to spot is on foot since I enjoy the walk. Many folks drive their cars, snowmobiles or 4-wheelers around on the ice which certainly saves a lot of time when re-locating. Some folks also use underwater cameras when re-locating to see what's going on below the hole.

Besides minnows, perch will also bite on other baits such as an ice- fishing jig (resembling a small minnow), salted minnows, or small round jig heads tipped with live or artificial grubs or minnows.

Perch eyeballs, as well as small pieces of skinless perch flesh also produce to some degree when fishing for perch, as well as crickets or mealworms that the pet stores carry. I must say though that crickets are excellent bait.
Perch will also take the right type of small artificial fly such as nymphs. Twitch and jig the fly close to the bottom. For some reason, perch won't take earth worms very well, which I find quite surprising.

You should change you natural baits if they become waterlogged or semi frozen because these conditions will deter the perch from biting them. On very cold days, and if you're not in a hut, your bait can quickly freeze when it's reeled in and out of the water. Always try to keep your natural baits fresh and in good condition.
If you're not ice fishing from inside a hut, on cold windy days your hole can freeze up very quickly. You must keep the hole clean at all times. Try not to allow ice to form around the hole's edge either, as this would restrict the hole size and may cause you to lose fish as well. Also, keep your fishing line and rod eyes free of ice build-up.

I don't keep my perch laid out on the ice as they're caught because they risk becoming frozen and in-turn would ruin the quality and firmness of the flesh. I usually keep them covered in a bucket with no water.
Generally speaking, it seems that "first" ice of the year and "last" ice of the year produce more catches of perch. Also, many female perch are usually full of eggs at this time of year, and some folks even enjoy eating the perch eggs as well. For me... I'll just stick to the fillets.