Great Lakes Perch Fishing : 6/28/09

With only 2 days left in the season I arrived at my spot that now feels like home, and will be missed during the month of July. I set up in the dark and tossed my spinner far, I backed my braid with mono yesterday so it won't slip on hook sets. Due to re-spooling the braid that first cast sailed to the horizon.

The first to casts produced very small rock bass. The bite was not on like I had hoped it would be but I had taken 3 and put 3 back by the time the sun rose. It took a lot of moving today, and fighting with currents, the ebb and flow into and out of the harbor was dramatic, like whitewater at times. The night of 10-15 knot northwest blow was stirring the lake up.

At the time when all was said and done there were 8 fish on my stringer. I gave a couple to a fellow who was having trouble getting his fish for the day and took home 6 to add to the freezer stockpile for fish fries of lazy July evenings to come. The fish averaged only 10" or 11" today, smaller than the stringer full of jumbos on friday.

It was nice to get out and I'll miss it when June turns to July.

I'll likely be out for one last hurrah in the next two days, I'll kiss the last perch goodbye and send him out to one of my favorite lakes in the world and hope he brings back his friends next year.

See you on the seawall for one last go at it.

Grand River Sturgeon Poacher Caught

A few weeks ago I reported that across the lake, in Grand Haven Michigan, a man was caught on camera taking a 5 foot long lake sturgeon which he had snagged in the tail, netted, and then dragged to his truck.

The DNR had offered a $1000 reward to anyone with information leading to his involvement in this crime. Since the reward was offered someone has come forward with information and now a 30 year old grand rapids man will be arraigned on July 9th for taking the sturgeon illegally.

Sturgeon can live to be more than 100 years old, they take 15 or more years to reach sexual maturity, and only spawn every few years.

Chicago Perch Limit : 6/26/2009

After all was said and done today, in a short 2 hours 3 stringers had a combined total of 36 jumbos waiting to be filleted. I made it out with friends Mike and Keith, I got my limit of 15 by 6:30 this morning. They were willing to bite anything that swam today, shad raps preceded by bullet weights, flukes on jigs, paddlebugs, raw softshells, and my personal favorite, the spinner tipped with shrimp.

The action was relatively fast starting at first light, and lasting to 6:15. I found the trick today was movement. I see these reports coming out of Montrose harbor that baffle me. People sit there and fish for 4 hours shoulder to shoulder and only take a few fish. Since perch are creatures of a school, why would you sit there and drag your bait through empty water. Every time I moved to a new location today one of two outcomes would transpire, number 1, I'd hook up right away, and take 4-6 perch within a matter of 5 minutes. Number 2, I would get no bites for 4 or 5 casts and move on. I'm not at some secret spot, in fact I'm fishing a spot just like any other in the miles of Chicago lakefront. It just happens to be a spot I go to each day. I know where snags are and where deeper parts are. I start off fishing the shallow areas over rocks before sunrise, and move to deeper water when the sun heads for the empty space above me.

I think if these hundreds of people sitting in one harbor or another moved along down the seawall and found pods of fish, they would be much happier.

My limit consisted of 4 fish over 13", 8 fish between 11"-13" and the rest were smaller due to gut hooking, or just a frantic need to take a limit, no fish were under 8.5".

It was a beautiful morning, a little cooler finally, I was shivering a bit before first light, it felt nice. I'm counting down the days now and will do my best to get out there every dawn. I will not be keeping as many fish now that I have stockpiled a good number. I just want to enjoy the bite before it's gone.

Like I say at the end of every one of these posts... I'll see you at the seawall.

Lake Michigan Jumbo Perch Report : 6/25/09

At long last, I had one of those days... One of those days on Lake Michigan that makes up for all those slow sunrises taking home a stringer with a single perch for two or three hours of fishing. I got to my normal spot today and decided to forgo fishing a double jig rig with artificials. I went straight to the super rooster tail (1/4 oz.) white with silver blade. I hooked some shrimp on the double hook and gave her a toss. A hit on the first cast but no take. The next three consecutive casts landed me three decent keepers, two of them being 12". My hopes were starting to get high, but I have been tricked by a burst of perch in the first 10 minutes before and didn't let them climb to any real height.

8 of the 10 keepers, the fattest of those 12" perch had an 8" girth!!

When all was said and done I had landed 14 perch from the lake, 10 of which were keepers, 6 were over 12", the rest were close but I try and keep only ones greater than 10". Lake Michigan was good to me this morning, the sun was bright and hot, the lake was clear, I could actually see fish hitting the spinner, and the ones I landed were large and made for a great lunch for myself and two friends.

One thing worth noting is that I picked up most of my perch from the Lake Michigan sea wall right before the sun came up, it then slowed down and after half an hour of slow fishing I decided I'd move into the harbor where things were deeper, darker, and still shaded from trees and the hill that is lake shore drive. I immediately started picking up fish upon doing this.

The perch bite on Lake Michigan is finally heating up, I'd get out there sooner than later... there are only 5 more days to chase these guys before the season closes for a month, to re-open when July turns to August.

I'll be out at the lake Saturday, Sunday, Monday if I can manage, more reports to come.

Lake Michigan Water Levels Up This Year

In years past I've found myself walking smooth white sand along quiet beaches in spots that used to be where I might have body surfed in the spring. This year there is a different story.

A friend of mine and I have a beach we tenderly refer to as "the secret beach", it is a place where I have never seen another foot print and it lies where garbage used to be poured into the lake in one fassion or another. We find sea glass, fishing plugs that find there way to shore, and other metalic oddities from the height of the factory days along the lake.

This chart from the NOAA is a great visual representation of their always in depth data.

We got down there for the first time this summer to find half the beach missing. I have since done some research and find that water levels are up somewhere right around a foot from last year at this time. Beaches that slowly slope down to the lake can get eaten up quickly by a foot of extra water.

Evening Perch Bite : 6/23/2009

I got on the bike and headed out into the 90 degree heat and chicago traffic and battled my way to the sea wall. Once I got past wrigly field the temp began to drop, it was something like 15 degrees cooler on the sea wall.

I was only fishing near one other fellow who was later joined by his girlfriend. He was a really nice guy, we exchanged some words, and he helped put some fish on my stringer as he didn't want to keep anything that wasn't a jumbo. I ended up taking home a few fish in the 10-11" range.

The bite was slow, very slow, but turned on for 20 minutes or so, on the front and back end of that the ocasional rock bass was landed.

Tonight I switched things up and fished with that wonderful Super Rooster Tail (1/4 oz.) but this time I attached some shrimp to its double hook. This trailer seemed to entice the perch into biting. I like this bait a lot as it needs not be assisted by any split shot or bullet weights or jig heads or anything of the sort, the blade spins at the slowest of speeds and it can be swung, popped, dragged, or just a nice retrieve that makes it glide just above the bottom flashing and fluttering as it slides through lake Michigan.

I ran into some wonderful asian tourists and answered all the regular skyline questions, as well as a kind vietnamese man who was far more excited than I was about the size, quantity and quality of my fish. He seemed to think they were perfect and asked what kind they were, I told him they were yellow perch and he said "ohhhh very good!", just further reinforcing my understanding of how good life is.

They still aren't around in numbers, and the season draws to a close. 1 week left here, I'll get a few more shots at these guys and then the time for Skamanias comes, along with inland trout and some Minnesotan bass, northerns, walleye, maybe some panfish and who knows... even a musky could be on my horizon.

I can't find a job for the life of me, but I can keep enjoying every morning I can get and any evening I find myself alone in the house I can't keep myself from getting on the bike and heading for the blue wonder of this great lake.

Fathers Day Chicago Fishing Report

I arrived at the wall today around 4:30 a.m. there were a handful of others there upon my arival, not as many as yesterday, but still a few other early birds. I had high hopes once again, and today things were a little better than yesterday. As soon as that sun got near the horizon the bite turned on, and stayed on for something like 40 minutes. I landed the first fish out of the other men out there, but was soon put to shame by the guys fishing with softshells.

Myself and the other guys using jigs with flukes were doing poorly so I switched to shad raps and quickly landed a 13" jumbo. The guys using shad raps all took around a half dozen in that 5-6 oclock magic hour. Those using soft shells took 8-10. It looks like the bite is switching over at long last. I knew it would happen but I didn't think it would be so sudden. I found only one softshell in the perch stomachs this morning upon fillet, and found more alewifes than anything else, but it was certainly a softshell bite.

Get those softshells and get out there, the bite has been lasting longer and perch were bigger on average this morning, I'm still looking for a limit at some point...

Good luck out there, and happy fathers day to any father that may happen to stumble upon this report.

Milwaukee Harbor Garbage Problem

So I took a stroll on my old fall salmon stomping grounds today, McKinley Pier in Milwaukee. Half way out, right at the bend I noticed something pretty remarkable on the harbor side of the wall. A tremendous floating island of refuse.

I've seen some bad flotsam problems in Milwaukee before but this is like nothing I've ever seen. I wonder what will be done of this floating island of wood, plastic, paper, and other floating debris. I suppose this might be a result of the recent deluge of rain that blew out the Milwaukee and Menomonee rivers. The Milwaukee jumped from 400 cfs to over 3000 cfs.

I wonder what will be done, it would be a big job to round up all that floating matter and get it out of the harbor. Boating in the harbor has to be nothing short of a game of dodgeball. I saw trees, 55 gallon drums, spent propane tanks, and kegs floating in the harbor and moving at a good clip through the gaps out into the lake. Be careful out there if you're planning on launching from McKinley, or even from under the hone. I wouldn't want to hit a keg with any kind of boat at any kind of speed...

Chicago Perch Fishing Report, Mid June

Well, we got what we asked for, west winds and warm weather. The sun came up today un-impeded by clouds. The weather was balmy and the air was still thick with moisture from the torrents we got over the last couple of days. I had high hopes as the sky got brighter and suddenly myself and the three fellows next to me hooked into perch. The bite was hot for 10 or 15 minutes, one after another for us all. I ended up tossing back some smaller ones along with the rest of the guys out there. Lots of perch in a short period of time, but smaller average today, a lot in the 9-10" range.

Perch are one of the more beautiful freshwater fish in my opinion.

I hooked another stray later in a small school that went through and produced a handfull of perch down the line, after putting him on the stringer I thought hard about why I kept that first one. It was only when I got home and realized my first one was 10" and that the second one was only a hair over 14"... I'm getting too used to these jumbos where the 9" keepers are looking like the smallest perch I've ever seen.

On the way out a guy fishing on the inside of the harbor had 2 perch in his bucket, they measured something like 5" and 7"... Come on it is jumbo season, forget filleting these things for a fingernail sized piece of meat.

The forecast for the 10 day remainder of the season... I'd say pretty good. Surface temps are dropping, as you'll see in the map above and we're looking at a couple of days of west winds and then a whole week of 80+ degree days. Since the season came in like the most timid of lambs, maybe she'll be a good sport and go out like a lion.

The Coldest Chicago June on Record : How it Relates to Perch

Well, we all know it, every time we go outside, not even mentioning a trip to lake Michigan, we wonder to ourselves: is it really June? It certainly seems like the calendar this year went something like : February, March, April, May, April...

50 degree days, something like 2 weeks straight of North/East winds, and constant drizzle and overcast is what we have been dealing with since the beginning of June.

It seems like this should keep the lake cool, but in fact...

The surface water temperature has been rising steadily for a while now. North East Winds have pushed all the warm surface water into the Chicago area.

According to the WGN weather center blog it's been the coldest Chicago June on record (something like 50 years of record keeping). Here is a Link to this article.

So in the last few days, I've seen numbers slow to a crawl. The dawn bite has gone from a strong 4:45-6:00 a.m. bite, dwindling to a 5:15-5:45 bite, and finally this morning to more like a 5:30-5:45 bite.

Further, when the Perch were really stacked in here I took a couple of high noon, heat of the day, direct sunlight trips to the harbor and proceeded to land or see landed one fish after another. It was as if the harbors held a cornucopia of these dinner delicacies.

For now, we'll wait, I've slowed my daily pursuit of perch down to a twice or thrice a week endeavor. This weekend we're due for some west winds (according to the forecasts). If we see this happen we might see the surface water pushed out toward the horizon, the cooler water from deeper, even below the thermocline could be forced to well up and fill the void left by the turbulent extraction of the 60 degree water on the top. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for this, as it will likely bring the perch back into the harbors.