TOPIC:

First fishing trip of the season. Ended up having to completely replace my Alpha One drive. Guess 40 years on the original drive is pretty good though... Finally got done with the break in period, so it was time to put some lines in the water.

Went out looking for some silver still in tight. Started out in 60 FOW, ended up zig zagging back in shallower. Landed a 6 lbs brown on 4 color with fire dot flasher with a red / white fly. 35 FOW between Baldy and Central Beach. Missed a smaller fish on a slider at about the same time. Had another rip on same slider a little later, but missed that one as well. Other than that, no hits. Pulled lines at 7 and headed in.

Marked tons of perch piles in 30 to 40 FOW between Baldy and Central Beach.

Thanks for the report.

I'm kind of second guessing myself a bit... I believe this was a brown, but maybe its a steelhead? I was going on the spot pattern on it...

What's everyone else think?

100% a brown

surprising to hear about the perch... sure it wasn't alewife? Heard quite a few reports of bait in that depth of water, but nothing on perch yet. Either way its a good sign, whatever they were

Brown

Thanks guys. Fist time I've caught one so I figured I'd check. I've been told they are good eating. Suggestions for seasoning / cooking?

MC_angler wrote:

surprising to hear about the perch... sure it wasn't alewife? Heard quite a few reports of bait in that depth of water, but nothing on perch yet. Either way its a good sign, whatever they were

I cannot say for sure, as I did not catch one. However, they definitely looked like perch schools on my graph, very similar to that picture I posted from last year. On my graph, small fish normally show up a blueish color. I am inclined to think that what I was seeing was perch, as they were big blobs with lots of small individual green arches above them. Wish I would have taken a picture or two of the screen yesterday as we were going over them.

Times like this is where it would be killer to have one of those under water cameras on the rigger, as I was dragging my riggers right through those piles.

Get that DNR boat out there and drop a net over top and find out for sure!

Just realized that I had posted the screen shot and a pic of a dragger perch from going through those schools (last year) in the perch thread.

Either way, what we were seeing yesterday looked about the same as that screen shot:

www.thesouthend.org/index.php/forum/perch/3035-mc-perch-5-8