Where to look for perch at the beginning of winter

Finding perch while fishing in winter worries every fisherman, especially when the dead of winter sets in. And this is not without reason. After all, it is during this period that finding a predator is difficult. Fishing on the first and last ice is not the same as fishing for perch in the dead of winter.

Of course, it is not difficult to catch at least a dozen small perches at any time in winter, even near the shores. But, if you enjoy catching exceptionally large fish, then you will have to work a little harder. What does the popular proverb say? Just like that: “You can’t even pull a fish out of a pond without difficulty.” Let’s figure out how to do this correctly so that the catch always pleases.

To successfully search for perch in winter, it is enough to have knowledge about such things as:

• the habits of a predator with the onset of cold weather;
• diet of this fish species;
• where do perches live?

We will tell you about all the intricacies of the search operation for catching perches, trying not to ignore a single important point.

Where to look for perch in winter

The first point that is worth paying attention to is that the appearance of perches should not be expected in one place, that is, on one hole. Of course, sometimes fishermen get lucky and, having just broken a hole in the ice, they encounter a school of fish. But here, as they say, the grandmother was guessing in two. Therefore, our goal is to contribute to the maximum catch of perch on the lake in winter, giving you all the necessary knowledge and skills for this.

Perch is constantly swimming somewhere, driven by a feeling of hunger. And those fishermen who love to catch active perches in winter will confirm that it is a very exciting activity. After all, active perch in winter grab bait with lightning speed, with amazing greed, without really understanding what it consists of.

But with passive perch, the search tactics on the river are different. And then you’ll have to give him a little nightmare. And for this you need to do this:

• correct selection of bait;
• choosing the right type of wiring;
• experiment with the fishing line, and instead of 0.14 diameter, set it to 0.12 mm.

It happens that in order to find a perch in winter you will have to drill more than one hole, or even ten... and walk the same number of kilometers along icy roads.

A huge number of fishermen profess the dogma about the chaotic movements of perches in the water column. However, this is not true. After all, perch, like any fish, has its own places. He stands there and comes there for feeding.

The predator also has favorite routes of movement from one end of the reservoir to the other. And there are plenty of favorite places for perches.

True, they may depend on:

• seasons;
• weather conditions;
• relief features of reservoirs.

Fishing time can be roughly defined as three periods:

• first ice;
• wilderness;
• last ice.

Search during migration period

The fact is that throughout the winter, fish tend to frequently change their favorite places in which they feed or simply stand. And to get to them, a school of fish is ready to swim for quite a long time. This is the “great migration”. Well, frequent changes of location throughout the day are common for a school of fish.

But this “small migration” performed by the predator every day is influenced by factors such as:

1. Extensive food supply.
2. Weather.

If snags are visible from the water in the fishing area, it’s worth fishing here!

Migration and settlement of fish on the first ice

You can catch perch after the first ice appears on reservoirs in the same places as at other times of the year. However, it is best to fish under the ice in coastal areas. Here, even at half-meter depths, you can perfectly catch both trophy humpback whales and 200-300 gram specimens.

When choosing a fishing location, choose the following places:

• not far from the coast;
• near snags protruding from bodies of water;
• near bushes, frozen and fallen trees, etc.;
• near sunken snags and grass;
• near steps and in places of sharp changes in depth in the range of half a meter to a meter, as well as in places where the bottom is uneven.

In winter, it is in such places that perch lives, being constantly hungry and therefore aggressive.

Fishing on one hole, either in a familiar place or in an unfamiliar body of water, makes sense within ten minutes. If during this time the bite has not started, you should change the hole. This should be done until you meet a school of fish.

And don’t rush to write off the old holes. During the time that you were fishing in other places, the flock could easily go to the first hole. And it happens that even in the most attractive places the perch does not want to bite. Therefore, it makes sense to return some time later.

Where to look for perch in the wilderness

In the last two months of winter, you need to look for perch using a different strategy based on the change in the habitat of this fish. During the dry winter period, it slows down its activity. It hardly moves and sits out in the depths, where there is grass, stones, snags, and other bottom relief.

And if almost the entire year the predator is attracted to playing with bait at a distance of several tens of meters, then during the deep winter this trick does not work.

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Yes, and during this period it’s worth looking for a “striped fish” within a much smaller radius. Therefore, it makes sense to drill holes no more than a two-meter distance from each other. And at this time you will almost have to put the bait into the fish’s mouth. Then you can count on at least some semblance of a bite.

And, by the way, the found perch needs to be pampered with complementary foods. To do this, take a jig or a feed bloodworm. In this case, the food must be of animal origin.

Read how to catch perch in February and what gear is best to use.

Three ways to improve the bite

The rich practical experience of fishermen has made it possible to identify a number of methods for improving the bite, including:

1. Bite activators are additives using pheromones that strongly attract perch. They are effective at any water temperature.
2. Ultra-sensitive gear.
3. Lures with pheromones can attract perch, causing it to have an excellent appetite and develop a schooling reflex. As a result, the fish travel in schools, which provides the opportunity for a good catch.

Well, you can understand other secrets of improving the bite by reading thematic publications on our website.

Where to look for perch on the last ice

The search at the end of winter should be carried out in the same way as on the first ice. As the ice melts, perch tries to huddle close to the shores. Gradually, it will now retreat to its natural habitat.

And since with the arrival of spring there is more oxygen in the water, then the fish, as its consumer, become more active. Consequently, holes need to be drilled over an area ten times larger. Although the search for perch at this time becomes easier compared to the middle of winter.

Where to look for a predator in winter when it migrates across a body of water

You need to look for perch constantly, and especially in an unfamiliar body of water. And therefore, all the “fishy” places need to be caught tirelessly. Well, having found a “cool” place, drill a dozen holes at once about fifteen meters from each other. As a rule, they are made according to the principle of a chessboard.

And after creating ten of them, fish the holes here, allocating ten minutes to each of them.

If you are looking for an active predator, you should drill holes every ten to fifteen meters. After all, active perch come to play with bait and from long distances.

If you start searching from the shore, but there is no bite yet, go in the direction of the river bed, while the holes should be made according to the same chess principle and at the same (10–15 meters) distance.

In the case when a perch is found, but there is no bite and it simply rams the bait, this is great. After all, the fish has been found and now you can experiment with a spinner, jig, balancer and bait.

And if the bite is good, you can fish until it fades away. And when this happens, it’s time to go searching again. But at the same time, you need to look into old holes again from time to time, because experience says that fish often return there.

And the holes are often fished with a balancer. It can attract predators from the longest distances. And if the fish comes, then you need to act according to the situation and with an eye on the intensity of the bite. If it is absent, or often goes idle, you should take a less weighty bait.

Well, now the most important thing about how to catch perch in winter!

Very often the first ice is transparent - ICE GLASS.

In this case, the perch will stand anywhere (any place) where there is muddy ice!

If you find a spot with a cloudy tint among transparent ice, then there will definitely be a perch there.

Where to look for cloudy ice.

Even when the entire body of water freezes, for a reason unknown to me, in 90% of cases, there will definitely be a strip of muddy ice near the coastal vegetation. This works especially well if it is not just a flat wall of reeds, but some kind of small reed ledge or floater.

The perch will definitely crawl under it and stand in this hole under the shade.

Tactics for searching for passive perches

If the perch is passive, then you need to look for it a little differently. Although the basic strategy is the same, there are special aspects in this case.

After all, passive fish are inactive, and often do not move anywhere, standing in one place. Therefore, there is no point in luring such a perch with bait thrown at 10-15 meters. But holes can be drilled in the usual way, this time at a distance of up to two meters. After all, now you have to literally put the bait in your mouth, then he might bite.

At the same time, important nuances when searching for a passive predator are:

• narrowed search area. In this case, the fishing location must be chosen carefully, with a detailed analysis of the bottom topography of the reservoir. It is important to have points and know the “cool” places where perch fish. You can ask someone about these;
• feeding the holes with jigs or feed bloodworms;
• using smaller bait compared to catching active perch;
• periodic feeding of active holes throughout fishing;
• The entire area around the existing holes should be drilled out. Since there are scattered flocks that do not respond to complementary feeding. Therefore, in order to lure them out, the bait must be placed as close to the prey as possible.

In this case, the equipment must be ultra-sensitive. After all, a fishing rod for lure fishing will not let you know that passive perches are biting. Therefore, we arm ourselves with small baitless jigs and go fishing.

And sometimes you can only interest perches by placing a bloodworm on a jig. Well, if the perch has revealed its presence, but completely ignores the bait, you should think about changing the fishing technique or even the bait. In this case, you need to try fishing with all available types of baits and bait. The main thing is that it helps to pump up the fish by finding the right access code to the secret of their bite.

Perch with winter bait and balancer

The traditional type of perch fishing is winter trolling. Such fishing was historically common among all northern peoples; even in the Novgorod Museum of Local Lore you can see winter spinners, forged or cast with a solid hook, dating back to the early periods of history. When playing, the spinner creates specific vibrations, which the fish approach from afar. It can attract fish as food, cause simple curiosity or irritation with its presence.

Spoons

The selection of the spinner is of great importance. It should not be too large in size so that a perch can capture it in its mouth, even a small one. The main thing is to find the fish and catch the first one; most likely, such a hole is worth sitting and playing for another five minutes. The most difficult thing when flashing is to choose a game. Each lure should have its own.

Based on their type, they are divided into carnations and gliders. When thrown, the carnations fall sharply down and to the side, and then return to their original position. The line is almost always taut. The gliders slowly lower when played, leaving the line in a weakened position. As a rule, fishing occurs from the bottom, and the descending glider is visible from afar. The carnation allows you to detect the subtlest touch of the bait and provoke the play of the most passive fish. When fishing for perch, studs are usually used more often, since it is easier to find fish using balancers.

Balancers

Perch also bites on the balancer. The latter is not so demanding on the game, there is no need to select it and is the easiest for a beginner to cope with. In addition, it produces wide, sweeping vibrations, which are caught far away by the perch and are capable of attracting a school from afar. What matters is usually the size of the balancer and its height above the bottom - sometimes the fish bite right under the ice. Playing with a balance beam consists of a moderately sharp toss of 30-40 cm and then release.

The return to the lower position and the bite are felt by hand, after which they pause. What is important in the game here is not the toss, but maintaining the required pause and returning to one point. A bait no more than 5-6 cm long is placed under the perch, both a spinner and a balancer, but the catchability cannot be judged by the type and price of the bait. It happens that the spoon looks rough and crooked, but it catches divinely. You have to try everything.

Tackle for spinners and balancer

A fishing rod for the spoon and balancer should be used that is quite rigid, with a length of 40 to 70 cm in the working part. For balancers - a little less rigid and longer. Rigidity is needed for proper play; you won’t catch anything with a short, snotty jig whip on a lure. The jerk of the spoon should not be dampened by the fishing rod, but transmitted to the spoon; it is already lubricated by the elastic fishing line. As a rule, it is equipped with a small reel and fishing line 0.1-0.15 mm. Thicker should not be used for perch. You can use a special winter cord, but the fishing rod is used softer and the action of the bait needs to be adjusted. It is not necessary to use a nod; the bite can be clearly heard by hand.

The fisherman usually has a separate fishing rod for different types of spinners, for balancers, because he knows in advance how they need to play with a specific bait. After all, it is not that expensive and can be made by yourself. Often, simply changing a homemade fishing rod from the top tip of a float rod to a fishing rod from a feeder whip can bring success in fishing. We must remember that not only the bait affects the bites, but also the game, some elusive little thing in the game just changed - and then the bites began, or, conversely, stopped.

Fishing tactics

This is the whole point of fishing with spoons and balancers - to choose a combination that the fish will like today. But this is important in small bodies of water, where perch can be found everywhere in approximately equal density. On large lakes and deep reservoirs the situation is different. It gathers in very large flocks. Finding the fish is crucial here. It's easier to do this in a team. Fishermen walk in a line 50 meters apart and drill holes at the same distance. There is no point in going closer in a large water area.

As soon as the echo sounder showed fish or there was a bite, they begin to fish in the hole; if there is no result, they drill this place in a cross, 3-5 meters apart, then move further until they find fish. It is of great importance to search for a perch with the whole gang; when one is found, everyone converges on it, despite, perhaps, dissatisfaction. True, it is advisable not to drill into anyone’s ass, because you can get hit in the head with a hot rod and an ice drill.

For such fishing, a snowmobile and binoculars will be a good help. The fisherman looks through binoculars to see who has a bite, then gets on a snowmobile and rushes towards him. The flock leaves, the search continues. Practice suggests that a hole for perch works for no more than ten minutes, during which time you can take out up to thirty beauties - it depends on the experience and speed of the fisherman’s hands. At the same time, you need to be able to get them out without anyone seeing. This is a very exciting fishing, fun, there are always a lot of people, there is a spirit of competition and a lot of activity - you have to drill a hundred holes a day. It is advisable for an angler to have not only an echo sounder, but also a flasher.

In shallow water the situation is different. Here they usually drill holes every five meters and walk along them. Usually one hole works no more than three to five minutes, and no more than a dozen fish can be recovered. But you don’t have to walk far; a snowmobile is also optional. Having fished the holes, they go back to the first ones, especially where there were bites before. Most likely, the fish will return there in half an hour or an hour. What matters here is to fish unnoticed by both the fish and other fishermen. It is important not to create a lot of noise; at shallow depths, shade the holes with snow. The number of holes per day is the same, about a hundred, so the load and benefits from fishing are no less.

Where to look on small rivers and lakes

On small rivers, detecting perches is much easier compared to large waterways and artificial reservoirs. First, you should look for this fish closer to the shores, in coastal areas. That is, this:

• driftwood. And any kind: sticking out of the water, sunken. Doesn't matter. Fallen icy trees and bushes;
• any outstanding bottom relief with depth variations in the range of half a meter to a meter, but no more;
• steep slopes and banks, etc.

You should look for perch in small bodies of water by moving from the banks, fishing the coastal edges, and moving towards the river bed. And in ponds and lakes you need to look for this fish in the same way. After all, the perch is the same, which means it has the same offers.

But there can be variations with the bait, its color, appearance and even weight. It should be extremely similar to the natural food of a predator.

Perch tackle

They catch perch on the river with a spinning rod, live bait and float rods. Tackle for catching river perch should be light but strong, since this fish has sufficient strength and provides considerable resistance when fishing. Perch also has excellent eyesight, so it is better to choose inconspicuous equipment. It is better to use rods with medium-fast action.

Many anglers for catching perch from the shore prefer a float rod with a long, lightweight carbon fiber rod (5-7 m) equipped with a line with a diameter of 0.22-0.27 mm, an “antenna” float with an elongated keel and a weight of 2-3 g, inertia-free reel for long casts.

Where to look on large rivers and reservoirs

It is more difficult to find perch on the reservoir, because it is a large “reservoir”. And if you don’t even know him, then there is a huge risk that the “striped one” won’t be found here at all. Therefore, to fish in the reservoir you need serious preparation.

It provides an approximate knowledge of the bottom topography of the reservoir and the locations of edges and dumps there. Local fishermen can be a great help with this. If, of course, they want... As a last resort, conduct “reconnaissance in force” on specialized Internet parties. Fortunately, there are no problems with this now.

And on the frozen surface of a reservoir it is easy not to lose your bearings even without knowing it. You can simply focus on the bulk of your fishing colleagues. If they saw fishermen, it means they found fish, and perhaps they are already catching fish.

And aimlessly wandering around the surface of a reservoir and drilling holes wherever you want will not help in the search.

Therefore, look for any irregularities in the bottom: ridges, edges, slopes. And as soon as you find it, immediately drill holes according to the principle of a chessboard. And the more helpers you have, the faster your actions will be crowned with success.

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What to fish with - tackle and bait

Probably no other fish has as many options for fishing gear as perch. For ice fishing for perch, anglers have come up with a huge number of methods and fishing rod options. The variety of lures for trolling is amazing.

• Mormyshki – please, any shapes, colors and sizes. Perch fishing from ice is also done using live bait, using girders and ordinary winter fishing rods. There is a separate detailed article on gear for winter perch fishing on our website.
• Any natural bait can be used as bait for perch - bloodworms, maggots, caddis flies, pieces of liver and cow udder. On the Volga, fishing with sprat is practiced. Various homemade products are widely used for winter fishing for perch.
• The most popular methods of winter fishing for perch are, of course, lures (balancers, spinners, ratlins, cicadas, amphipods) and fishing with jigs (attached or reelless). Pods, flies, bullheads and edible rubber are considered very catchy. Each fishing method is covered in a separate article on our website.

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Where to look for big bass

Beginners dreaming of record catches should remember this:

• It is advisable to look for large perches at depths (preferably 5–8 meters);
• perch does not like a flat bottom, but loves rich bottom relief with depressions and hills;
• rocky or clayey soil at the bottom with sufficient depth may indicate a fishing spot;
• make a couple of holes close to each other. If their depth difference reaches a couple of tens of centimeters, this place can be called fishy. Especially if the average depth level at the fishing site is 5–6 meters and next to it the depths reach more than 10 meters;
• lumpy, hilly bottom of a reservoir. Being a large humpback whale, it may rarely respond to large bait. And “guys” weighing more than a kilogram can easily take small jigs on which one bloodworm sits. And on huge balancers and spoons, as a rule, they take medium-sized perches.

If you fish at a depth of more than seven meters, the animation of your bait will be distorted. And often playing with a jig in this case is useless. It will be visible to the perch as a blurry spot. The main thing in this case is to interest the fish. And you can already catch a predator at the bottom.

Humpback whales, unlike small ones, take bait extremely carefully. And they will not fly headlong after something incomprehensible that moves extremely strangely.

If you play with a devil or jig, outwardly it may seem like a slight bend in the nod or even stopping it altogether. And from the bottom, perch can bite on the rise. And it will look like the handwriting of a roach or bream.

Fishing technique and tactics

Winter perch fishing tactics involve actively searching for fish. First, you should start fishing such promising places near the coastline where there are bushes, grass or reeds. Holes are drilled at a distance of 5-10 meters from each other, preferably in a checkerboard pattern. You should not start fishing immediately in a drilled hole; it would be best to immediately make the required number of holes at the fishing site, and then start fishing the holes starting from the first. You shouldn't stay on one hole for a long time. If after a couple of runs there is no bite, you should move to another hole. If there are no bites on one hole, you should start drilling holes a little further from the coastline, thereby moving deeper into the reservoir. As soon as the perch is found, you should stay in the area and drill a couple more holes close to the first hole, literally two meters away. If there are pokes and the perch tries the bait, but does not take it, you should change the bait or change the technique of presenting the bait.

Fishing technique using a jig with bloodworms

This technique involves gently twitching the jig with the rod, gradually lifting the jig up. Usually the perch stands at the bottom and you shouldn’t lift it very high; just lift the jig from the bottom by 10-50 cm; after lifting, if there is no bite, you should use the same movements to smoothly release the jig back to the bottom. In professional circles, this kind of wiring is called stepped, and is considered the most catchy. Of course, there are many other wiring and each angler has his own unique wiring.

Reelless fishing technique

Here things are much more complicated, if when fishing with bloodworms the perch responds even to not the most ideal wiring, then when fishing with a bloodworm, the more ideal the wiring, the greater the chance of a bite. The most important thing is to attract the attention of the perch to the baitless jig. Therefore, the first two or three wirings should be aggressive with a large amplitude of oscillation of the reelless bait, the next wiring should be less aggressive and, as a rule, the perch takes exactly such a wiring. Aggressive wiring implies active play with a reelless reel with a large amplitude of oscillation during play and rapid rise. It can be done in different ways. Passive wiring, let's call it that, is similar to wiring with a bloodworm, but a little faster; during such wiring you can pause; it is during the pause that there are more bites if the perch is not so active.