Catching perch with fry at different times of the year, choosing equipment

Important introductory note

A simple freshwater river perch is one of the many representatives of ray-finned fish, which, in addition to it, also includes such well-known fish as Ruff, Blue Marlin, Ratan and many other predatory and relatively predatory species. From this we can reasonably conclude that ray-finned fish have settled well almost everywhere - from the endless waters of the Pacific Ocean to little-known rivers like the Miass, which flows in the depths of the Eurasian continent.

One of the most famous and widespread fish of this family is our today’s hero - river perch. So much has already been said about him that there is nothing to add. However, we will still try to tell you a little more about this little sharp-finned and striped prankster than usual.

The perch attacks so quickly and selflessly that sometimes it seems as if lightning flashed over the surface of the water. Therefore, fishing with live bait can be either very successful or not at all as the fisherman himself would like.

At this stage, a reasonable question arises: where to get live bait? In fact, everything is very simple. The first thing you need to do is bring a jar of worms and a piece of bread with you to the pond. Periodically, alternately feed the fish first with one delicacy, then with another snack and wait. Soon there will be many small-sized fry and simply not large enough “trash” fish, among which, of course, the perch itself may be present.

There is nothing wrong with using perch as bait for another - its larger brother. Perches are cannibals, not all, but many. Adult individuals are excellent at distinguishing their own kind, but for some reason some of them do not disdain to feast on perch flesh at their leisure. These are the preferences that can only be explained by the presence of some kind of innate program designed to independently prevent an overabundance in the striped population.

How to properly attach a fry

To use bait for a long time, you must be able to properly attach it to gear. In a certain way, a small fish placed on a hook can remain alive for a long time and attract predatory fish.

Live bait is secured in several ways:

For the lip. This method is most effective when fishing in the current, as well as when using doubles.
Behind the back. The method is used when using a tee or a large hook. Here it is necessary to hook the bait very carefully, ensuring the safety of the spine. Hooking on the back requires taking into account the fact that the perch does not grab the bait entirely, which means there is no need to rush too much with hooking. When fishing for perch using a jigging rod, it is recommended to wait a little and let the line come off the reel.
For the gills. The most reliable and safe method that ensures the viability of an individual for a long time. In order for the bait to hold well, you need a fairly large and sharp hook.

How to get the fry correctly

Tip: take two buckets. The first of them is that it will be smaller for live bait, and the second, of course, is for trophy or just large perch. Take a net, and as soon as the fish begins to appear on the surface, eating the bread or worms thrown to it, immediately grab it with the net in whole handfuls from the water. This whole procedure will take you 15-20 minutes at most, but then you won’t have to think about where to get live bait.

Perch loves live bait. This is especially true for those reservoirs where, in the course of an increase in the number of fishermen of different stripes, there has been a dominance of the use of newfangled gadgets, which perches can no longer “look at.” Against their background, live prey will seem to the striped reckless fish to be a normal fish, which does not at all resemble and cannot resemble the suspicious-looking bait of some malicious person with a stick in his hands.

Humpback whales become so large only after long and painful years of constant survival against the backdrop of aggressive neighbors like catfish, pike perch and pike, which swim past every now and then, because they prefer to settle in approximately the same reservoirs as the ill-fated perch:

clean running water
wide floodplains
large lakes or semi-freshwater seas
algae thickets, sloping bottom, rocks

Perch has many enemies. Too much. After all, he is small. He will have nowhere to run if he comes face to face with some catfish that suddenly appears in his native thickets. Even an experienced perch is nothing compared to the far from largest bottom pike. And in order to survive, perches begin to behave as secretly as possible, do not stick out too much, sit between the stones and only go out on their quiet hunt in a relatively short period of time between evening and late at night.

The old individuals did not have the former agility of the small youngsters, who in schools of 300 tails rushed across the entire water area in chaotic directions, catching up with their food even smaller fish. Those times are now 5-6 years behind us, or even 10. Both the humpbacks and the sailors started it all together. Together they began their journey from eggs. Together they ran in flocks along rivers and lakes.

Together they shared the spoils with each other. But growing up in such conditions was practically impossible. Thus, after about a year or two, perches begin to move away from the global school towards smaller formations - from 30 to 100 tails. And so on, until eventually, already seasoned, the perch is left alone.

After all, all their brothers were devoured either by pikes, or people, or he himself. Now all that remains is to take care of your own safety - a rocky bottom is the best option for this. It would be good if there were branchy trunks of fallen trees rotten from moisture on top. You can hide in them from the huge mouth of a bottom pike or catfish. A distant relative of the perch, the saltwater-loving blue marlin reminds us of our hero. He also starts out in a pack and ends up in splendid isolation.

He also does not have many enemies, because the only threat comes from the great white shark and the mako shark. The sharp, hard nose allows you to inflict significant damage even on them, so once again, sharks that are not large enough will prefer to swim past rather than compete with a sharp-nosed ram, which at any moment with great speed can slam its spear right into their soft stomach.

And our perch, the humpback fish, is not as simple and harmless as it seems. Even if they eat it, they will die with a probability of 70% of cases. Very hard and sharp spines on its crest are capable of tearing the delicate insides of a predator and dooming it to death in terrible agony. It is possible that at the genetic level, the same pike has certain programs that protect it from colliding with a perch that has an overly impressive crest.

In any case, the perch itself does not pose much of a threat to large enough fish. Its mouth is not so huge that it can use a vacuum to suck in fish larger than a certain size. He is a hunter of small and numerous fish. Sometimes you don’t mind picking up some floating bug. Lonely small prey will also be to his taste. He will clearly be interested in this easy prey. And the fisherman should take advantage of this, because it will be difficult to attract the attention of the “old man” otherwise.

The main thing here is to avoid unnecessary attention from small perches, which will constantly climb in and create interference. To do this, you need to know where to “hunt” for large perch.

More ways to get fry, including homemade ones - video

Catching perch with fry

Artificial baits are now in fashion and there are some explanations for this: some pride of the fisherman who has outwitted the cautious, and sometimes obstinate, inhabitants of the entire underwater world. But not everyone has the opportunity to get jigs or other artificial baits for fishing. Therefore, traditional baits are used, for example, whitebait (verkhovka or verkhovka), which is unjustifiably forgotten by city fishermen and, on which, the bite is no worse than on a jig or spinner.

Where and when to fish

The humpback prefers to settle near the shore, where the bottom is replete with large stones. Reeds may not always be of interest to large perch, because they do not protect the weakest inhabitant of freshwater bodies from other predators. Pike generally consider reed thickets to be their domain, thus driving perch into rocky corners. This is true for rivers. In lakes, especially large ones, even schooling perches can grow to a significant size of 600 grams, despite the fact that the school itself will number up to 100 tails.

In the rivers you need to go out for humpback whales at dusk - from seven o'clock in the evening to 11 o'clock at night. Sometimes you can stay until two o'clock in the morning, but this is rare. Night is the time for pike and other river monsters. In lakes, schooling large perches can rush around the water area during the daytime, while in the evening and at night you won’t find them even with fire. In peat lakes, humpback whales, despite everything, go hunting from about seven o'clock in the morning until noon. Sometimes they crawl out in the late afternoon, but strictly before sunset. Apparently, this is again due to the fact that peat lakes are the favorite habitats of the eternal enemies of perches.

Choosing a place to catch perch

When planning a fishing trip, the first thing you need to worry about is choosing a place. Perch is a sedentary fish that does not go far from its usual camps. To determine where fish accumulate, it is necessary to periodically go fishing in late autumn and evaluate the bite. Based on the results obtained, you can easily determine the expected habitat of perch in winter.

After the reservoir has frozen over, conduct another reconnaissance, including identifying the locations and boundaries of underwater obstacles under a thin layer of ice. It makes sense to conduct test fishing in specific places, and then mark the areas most populated by individuals. When setting marks, it is necessary to take into account the thickness of the ice, which can increase until the moment of full-fledged entry into fishing.

At the beginning of winter, the majority of perch concentrate closer to the shore. As soon as the ice begins to grow, the fish go deeper and gather in the places marked during exploration of the first ice. It is advisable to make several marks at once, since there is always a risk of other fishermen appearing or the school leaving the marked area.

On the first ice, perch, even large specimens, feed in shallow water. It can be found near algae, in snags, as well as on various edges and pits.

It is advisable to drill holes at a distance of 3–5 meters from the algae. When positioned too close to such places, there is an increased risk that the bait fish will lead the equipment into the thicket and tangle it. And if you move too far from the mark, it will be difficult to lure the fish to the fishing spot.

As the ice grows, the perch will move towards the middle of the reservoir, looking for the deepest areas. Usually, by December, perches live at maximum depth and stop pecking as actively as they did on the first ice.

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Features of fishing at different times of the year

In summer, perch are dispersed throughout the entire water area. The humpback sits in the same place all year round, with the exception of especially cold winters, when it goes to the deepest areas to bury itself in the silt and wait for some time, without touching anyone.

Catching perch with fry in winter involves the use of special jig-free gear equipped with three multi-directional hooks, reinforced with a tin connection in the center, which are used on their own, even without the presence of spinners. In this case we are talking about fry as bait. But in this case, the best solution would be not to use the fry itself on the hook, but to feed the fry in the hole, and throw gear there, which, through special manipulation, can attract the attention of some fat-bellied giant of the perch family.

Catching perch with fry in the summer requires the angler to have a lot more maneuvers. Here you can use both a regular retractable casting rod and an ultra-technological modern spinning rod. The baitfish is hooked and sent into the water at a distance of five meters from the shore, on average. If there is no catch, then you need to move 10 meters away from the original position. After walking around, you will probably catch, if not a trophy, then certainly not a tiny minke whale.

Fishing technique

The perch moves quite a lot. Therefore, in order to stay with a good catch, you need to drill many holes and constantly move from one point to another. It is better not to remove ice crumbs from drilled holes, then the fish will be less wary.

The easiest way to place a live bait on a hook is to insert the sting into the back between the head and dorsal fin on one side and bring it out on the opposite side. At the same time, you must not interrupt the spine. Then the fry will remain viable, be mobile and remain attractive to perch for a long time. When fishing in the current, it can be attached to the upper lip, bringing the sting out through the nostril.

To catch a perch with fry, just lower the equipment into the water at the desired horizon and wait for bites. Usually fishing takes place at the bottom. But the minke whale can also stay in the middle or upper layers of water. Therefore, at the beginning of fishing, you need to check different horizons. Once it is clear in which layer the most bites occur, you can focus on fishing it.

But fishing will bring better results if you play along a little with live bait. To do this you can:

first lower it, making stops every half meter or meter;
then hold the equipment at the bottom, periodically lowering and raising it a little;
then, with pauses every half meter or meter, raise it to half water or to the ice.

The length of pauses should be about 5-10 seconds. It is during stops that the perch often attacks the fry. All movements during such “retrieving” of live bait should be slow and smooth. Perch bites with live bait confidently, so it’s hard to miss a bite.

Catching perch with live bait in winter is an interesting fishing method that you can safely adopt. It is especially relevant on the first ice, but you can also catch it in the spring. Any fishing rod will do; assembling the equipment is not difficult.

Some inconvenience is caused by catching fry, storing them and moving them around the reservoir. But there is nothing complicated here either. But the perch will certainly delight you with a good bite, because it loves the fry very much and readily responds to it.

Tactical features of fishing

Catching perch for fry in the summer with a float rod is by no means a delicate matter, but rather the opposite - even a complete beginner or a child can cope with it. The main thing is to prevent the fishing line from getting tangled on the coastal snags that striped beasts love so much. Fishing for perch using live bait leads to a 90% successful outcome. And the larger this fry, the larger will be the one who bites on it. Live bait that is too large is unlikely to be of interest to young sailors.

But even an overly large pseudo-fry will attract the attention of some pike, and the perch will remain a cautious observer; in this case, he will not risk making a dangerous lunge in front of the owner of freshwater reservoirs, because a seasoned perch will certainly be exposed to suicidal tendencies won't succeed.

Was it because he grew to his 4-5 kilograms (phenomenal for a perch) because he was very careful? Use live bait with extreme caution. Make sure she doesn't die prematurely. Let it behave in the most natural way, do not interfere with the course of its movement, watch and do not lead it, as soon as the perch bites, then you will need to drag the ready-made one to the shore (or to the boat) as hard as you can.

Float trolling

Above we talked about catching perch with live bait by casting, but sometimes it is more productive to catch perch with fry using the float trolling method. It allows you to check large areas of water and find schools of fattening perch. In addition, when you catch perch with a small fish cast, the bait often flies off, but when trolling it always remains intact.

Trolling with float rods with baited fry is carried out like this. At the stern of the boat, the fisherman places one or two fishing rods and swims very slowly, rowing with oars. The speed should be such that when moving the float the float is not pulled under the water. The line release from the tip of the rod to the float is 10-15 m. A longer release is not needed, since the feeding perch of the boat is not afraid. If you use two fishing rods at once, even if they are widely spaced, during long-distance releases and maneuvers of the boat, the float rigs come closer to each other and can get tangled.

I usually use a one-person rubber boat for float trolling. The question may arise: will the perch be afraid of a boat passing near the school? Not only will it not be afraid, but, on the contrary, when the boat passes near reeds, sedges, cattails and other aquatic plants, schools of perch become more active. This is due to the fact that when the boat moves, the fry becomes animated and comes out of its hiding places into spaces clear of algae, which provokes the perch to attack. Sometimes I deliberately point the boat at the seaweed to drive the fry out of there. This is often followed by a perch bite.

The length of the fishing line from the float to the bait should correspond to the depth of the water area in which trolling is carried out. During the retrieve, even if you move at a very low speed, the fry, when rowing with oars, rises much higher than the bottom, and when the boat slows down, it falls down. This is the horizon on which you should catch perch. For this kind of fishing, a leash with a length of 40-60 cm is used. A load of 5-10 g usually consists of one to three shifted lead pellets. But to prevent the fry from flying up too high, you can increase the weight of the load by using a sliding “olive” weighing 7-15 g as the main sinker. This will also entail an increase in the carrying capacity of the float. In general, when fishing this way, it is enough to have just one fixed lead sinker on the line near the leash, which will ensure constant tension of the line between the weight and the float. Then, when the oars move, a pendulum effect is created: the fry on a long leash either flies up into higher layers of water, then falls down, which attracts perch. To prevent the float from sinking when being deployed, it must have two attachment points - near the antenna and on the keel.

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The route of the boat should pass along thickets of reeds, sedges and other algae, near which the perch chases the fry. You cannot ignore the islands on lakes and reservoirs, near which dense schools of perch of various sizes often gather. On the dammed tributaries of reservoirs you can also find suitable areas for such fishing.

How to choose gear

Perch, as you know, is not the most picky fish. Even an ordinary float fishing rod, equipped with a simple non-inertial reel, a simple fishing line with a diameter of 0.5 millimeters, an ordinary spoon, provided that there is live bait, will bring you the treasured catch. The main thing is to remain calm and steely self-control, without interfering with the process of moving the bait itself through the water, otherwise the humpback will sense a catch and hide between its stones, leaving you alone with the fry.

Fishing for fry and catching perch video

Fishing for perch using live bait is one of the most effective ways to defeat a cunning opponent in a fight. We are talking about humpback whales, while small perches are unlikely to be at all interested in fish as bait, because the basis of their diet is various microorganisms.

For a better understanding of the material presented here, we recommend watching this video, which may be useful and instructive for you. Try not to neglect the advice given in this article. Ultimately, the success or failure of all your endeavors and attempts to achieve an outstanding result and finally get the desired trophy will depend on this.

How to choose fry for perch

Almost any small fish is suitable for ice fishing for perch with fry in winter. However, it is best to use live bait with narrow, elongated bodies. It is also advisable to select the species that is found in a particular body of water. In this case, the perch will become accustomed to the fry and will respond better to potential prey. Fish with a wide body (for example, bream fry) are not suitable, since the perch is extremely reluctant to react to such prey.

Most often used as live bait:

minnow;
roach;
dace;
small perch, etc.

When choosing bait, special attention must be paid to the time during which the individual remains viable. A minnow strung on a hook lives the longest. It is advisable to select bait 3–8 cm long, since the perch is unlikely to pay attention to smaller specimens.

You can catch the fry using a fishing rod, but this method will require a significant amount of time. It is much more convenient to use a top with small cells. You can make such a design with your own hands without any problems.

Fishing for bait proceeds as follows:

An ice hole is created in the ice, where bait is poured.
The top falls into the water.
After some time, you need to raise the top, along with it, pulling out the live bait that got into the cells.

For convenience, live bait can be prepared in advance for future use. In a barrel of water placed in a cool place, the fry are stored for 1–2 weeks. In this case, it is necessary to periodically add food and also remove fallen fish.

When going fishing, it is better to store live bait in a can. The necessary conditions to support life will be created inside.

When fishing with sprat, a fisherman can simply buy any small fish in the store and use it as bait, whole or in parts. The choice of dead bait makes it necessary to imitate the game yourself, luring predators.

It is important to know how to properly hook live bait so that the fish does not fall asleep too quickly. The more actively it moves under water, the faster the bite will begin.

Current rigging

With proper preparation, you can catch perch in winter with fry even in strong currents. Such conditions even have some advantages, since they allow you to do without live bait. Dead fry or sprat are quite suitable as bait.

The equipment should include a sliding sinker and a stopper that holds the bait at a certain depth. Retractable leashes with hooks work great.

A strong current will allow even dead fish to move as if they were alive. If several gears are installed, then it is necessary to secure them very securely on the ice surface. Otherwise, the perch may drag the fishing rod under the ice.

The fry can be hooked either on one hook or on several. The option with two hooks secured with wire works great. One of them is located in the head of the bait, while the other is in the tail.

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