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Just thought I'd share our general experience so far this summer. We fish out of NB and St Joe. First, we are marking a ton of schools of fish all over the place in 20-35 fow. It is debatable whether these are perch or alewives. A week or so ago you could drop a bare hook down and catch alewives over these marks. Lately I think the alewives are spawning so they are not biting. Further, the marks are not as strong as perch, for the most part. 

Second, fishing over these schools has not been productive. We have caught almost all our perch drifting. We fish evenings and every single time it has been a mad bite from 8:30-9:15pm and nothing otherwise. So we have 4 rods out that pop off in triples and quads during that bite window and are dead all other times. This has happened 3 or 4 evenings already.

The perch we clean have empty stomachs so I'm not sure why they aren't eating for a longer time. Also even when we get a triple and immediately spot lock to try for more bites, it doesn't work. They seem to really want it moving.

Anyone else care to chime in with your experience?

I put a camera down. When the school is a little higher but still from the bottom. Alewives

Fished St Joe last weekend same thing. Fished silvers early set up for perch at 9:30 we drifted 25-30FOW marked a ton of something only managed one perch. Chasing sliver tomorrow cold water in somewhat close I hear. Haven't heard anything on perch in New Buffalo.

I have had a similar experience, but haven’t done any drifting, been spot locking and dropping on them, have had a few brief 10-15 minutes of great action every drop having a hit or a fish but outside of that it’s been one or two here or there and really mixed sizes, biggest for me this summer so far is 13” or so. Baits have been shiners, shrimp, but mostly small to medium fathead minnows. Have caught every trip I believe since mid to late June but it’s really been very variable, haven’t been out since the winds changed.