TOPIC:

I have been doing a lot of thinking about perch fishing recently, and both seasonal trends, and trends over the past 3, 5, 10+ years. I have been investigating a bunch of angler survey data for catch rates, effort, and depth fished on a monthly and yearly basis.

I am curious if anybody has noticed any trends or changes in LM perch fishing, especially in the May-Sept timeframe. Have you noticed big changes in success rate, when you are catching perch, where you are catching perch, etc?

I have a bunch of data I'd like to share but want to get some thoughts from the group before I post it

I have not noticed much change. During summer I fish off the beaches in anywhere from 15' to 50' of water. I would guess it is water temp dependent but do not have a probe until this upcoming year. I have a feeling what your data shows but oddly enough I have caught more fish shallower recently vs. deeper a few years ago. More than likely that was luck of the draw and weather conditions more than anything. I would think they are getting deeper and deeper.

When the fish disappear (say a north or east wind) I have worked out to 80' looking for them and can never find anything. Alot of water out there though. I am guessing you need to find structure of some sore out there to located them.

20 plus years ago we had good fishing in lawn chair sitting on the wall at Cal Park and on the pier at Michigan City in the summer. 10-15 years ago it seemed like the weedbeds at Cal park and up in Chicago were the most consistent areas. In the past 5 years or so it seems like the beaches are the best bet fishing inside of 35ft for the most part.


There's been so many major changes to the Lake in my lifetime it seems it would be tough to nail down whats causing what. First big one I remember was the nettter getting shut down. Then the gobies started showing up. Next the Zebra mussels began making news, At the same time the mussels started really taking hold, the water cleared significantly/ While that was happening levels started dropping. Then the alewives disappeared. Now we've got lake trout all over the place and flocks of cormorants the black out the sun.

Always changing, when I used to hit the waters by 95th street pier and Inland in the mid 90's every year around October 12th we would get a fantastic bite tied up to the 95th street break wall on the east end. I remember the water was like mud one year and still could not believe the perch were there and biting. Kept a log year to year back then. Myself and a couple of buddies were usually the only ones there. A lot of things has changed as mentioned since then(zebra mussels, food supply and such). Wind is a big player with perch as everyone knows. Don't be afraid to try new areas, new tactics, deeper depths. Just my 2 cents. KJK

Biggest change, or factor, underlying and over-riding all angler opinions, my experiences and scientific analysis is there are FEWER PERCH in the lake.
Perch fished 20-30 times at Michigan City or New Buffalo the last two summers and catches were slow/spotty in June and best in September, with August being OK.

On a positive note, on some of the Chicago fishing sights there has been a ton of small fry perch reported in all of the Chicago harbors this fall which means maybe a very good hatch on a certain year class of perch. We can only keep our fingers crossed. KJK

Lots of good observations so far! A lot of it lines up with things I have noticed out on the water and/or have data for.

The first is Mike's comment about June and Aug/September. Over the past few years, the perch fishing in June has fallen off a cliff, for lack of a better phrase. Even though yearly catch rates have remained mostly stable, June catch rates have plummeted.


AThe other thing is that the farther East you go, the better the perch fishing. Michigan City is by far and away the best Indiana port for perch. And New Buffalo and St. Joe have probably been even better the last several years



With regards to depth, here is the average depth fished since 2000 in the April, May, and June time periods. Notice the increasing trend for April/May - people apparently used to fish for perch in relatively shallow water even in early spring. Now its all 45+ feet.

Also note that June was remarkably consistent in the 25 foot zone - until 2011. Which, as it happens, is when the catch rate in June started plummeting. That's not a coincidence

As Southshore mentioned, the real question is sorting out what changes have occurred, and which of the factors precipitated those changes.

Not only has the decreasing perch population been a factor (prolonged periods of minimal recruitment in the past decade), but massive food web changes have happened.

I think perch used to be inshore in April/May/June because they were feeding on plentiful alewife and other nearshore prey. As the mussels have devastated the alewives and changed the foodweb to be more bottom-oriented, a few changes have happened. We no longer get massive influxes of alewives in the nearshore areas in April/May and even into June. A big food source is gone, plus a predation buffer - why try eating a spiky perch when you could eat an alewife? Plus increased water clarity is likely a large factor.

The second is gobies. Perch are eating a ton of gobies now. And many gobies move offshore for the winter and don't come inshore en masse until late May -mid June. I think these perch are staying out deep and feeding in gobies in that 40-80 foot zone into June.

Like Jeff said, it's mighty hard to find those perch out deep. But we consistently pick them up in lake trout assessment netting in late May and early June, even out to 80 feet.



The good news is that the 2015 yearclass was massive, and they have survived well. Short term, they will be annoying as they are 5-7 inches, but in a couple years after they are all 8+ inches, fishing should be excellent. If we can get another good recruitment year in the next 3 or 4 years, that will be fantastic. Hope for some cold winters in that regard, since perch recruitment is generally better in years with cold winters and higher ice cover

Is there a reason for not having a closed perch season during spawning time?

That's a good question!

Biologically, a dead perch is a dead perch and will never spawn again. This is probably a slight oversimplification, but population dynamics wise, it has a mostly negligible effect on when you kill an animal, only that you killed it. For instance, whether you are keeping a perch in April or July, it won't spawn again.

Spawning closures generally only make sense in a few situations, such as:

1) if there are giant spawning aggregations in small geographic areas that make fish more vulnerable than normal (like say, walleyes in a river below a dam)

2) if fishing itself will disrupt spawning behavior

3) if there is a ton of fishing effort during spawning time that would over-exploit a spawning population

4) fishing activity itself will damage spawning habitat (such as anglers wading on top of brook trout redds and crushing eggs)

Since none of these are significant concerns for LM perch, there is no pressing biological need for a fishing closure during the spawning period. Especially since perch are prolific spawners, there are more than enough perch to pull of a giant yearclass if the conditions are right (like in 2015). The thing governing perch reproductive success is environmental conditions, rather than the number of perch spawning (at least, above some threshold of available spawning stock biomass).

Therefore, the one thing we would be concerned about is limiting total exploitation (amount of harvest) relative to the population, whether during the spawning season or over the entire season.


However, in general there is not much harvest during the spawning period (late April-early June). Even if you include all of April and May you are talking about 11% of total harvest.