Perch tips

[Wildfisher]

Perch are wonderful fish, lots of good memories, first freshwater fish I caught. At their best they are the handsome dandies of the river, loch  or lake.

[burnie]

My advice would be regarding the rod, a soft tip is key to act as a shock absorber, with this you don't tend to lose many fish.I caught many a big Perch with hooks down to size 22 with a single maggot it's about balance.
Years ago a pennel rig with two hooks was the popular method with worms, but modern angling now goes to extremes,hair rigs are not just for Carp anglers.
My personal choice would be to use a live minnow if allowed, only caught from the water you are fishing,never take fish to another water. Worm is by far the simplist and succesful method whether with a float or legered, as has been said,near to submerged structure.
Perch are ambush predators and hang around tree roots, drop offs or even old shopping trolleys and oil drums. Perch tend to live in shoals of the same size of fish, if you find a shoal of small fish move or at least fish some distance away from the small fish.
I have not found the soft mouth problem, the soft bits tend to be in the part of the telescopic part that extends when engulfing the prey,the other bits are quite tough. I have thought about using circle hooks as they are greedy and are often hooked deeply in the throat.
Trout waters tend to have a lot of Perch in them,Rescobie and Lintrathen are both full of big Perch and can be caught on the fly(I caught one from Rescobie 8 years ago on a nymph near some lily pads)just a bit expensive fishing for the day.

[Wildfisher]

Rescobie and Lintrathen are both full of big Perch

Balgavies, next big loch  on the Arbroath side of Rescobie had serious perch when I was a lad. Sadly  fishing was banned 30 years + ago as it is an SNH  run reserve. You can't really blame them though can you? Just think of the f*****g  state of shite, barbeques, discarded tackle  and other junk  it would be in if fishing was allowed. Too many static bait fishers are mucky bastards.

[haresear]

Just a wee point as livebaiting has been mentioned a couple of times. livebaiting with fish is now illegal in Scotland.

Three guesses what my biggest perch was caught on? :roll:

Alex

[Traditionalist]

You can use a dead minnow or similar ( small roach are good) on the drop shot system.

[haresear]

I have some of these. Should do a job. http://venomlures.com/venom_gobies_super_soft_hand_poured.htm

Alex

[Traditionalist]

I have some of these. Should do a job. http://venomlures.com/venom_gobies_super_soft_hand_poured.htm

Alex

They look OK. It can be a real problem choosing artificials. Some days they will go for a particular colour scheme or type, and on another day they wont look at it. Natural worms always work and fresh deadbaits will usually work as well, but it can often take quite a while to catch a few baits, so I invariably use worms. I have been meaning to try herring strip for quite a while but somehow I keep forgetting to prepare it. I think it ought to work as  well.

[sinbad]

I have been meaning to try herring strip

.
Mike ive just cut a sliver off in the past do you do something to make it more appealing or stay on the hook better.
Cheers Ian

[Traditionalist]

.
Mike ive just cut a sliver off in the past do you do something to make it more appealing or stay on the hook better.
Cheers Ian

As I wrote, I have been meaning to try it for perch for ages now, but I keep forgetting it.  I have used it a lot in the sea. There I fillet the herring, using a thin very sharp fillet knife I then cut most of the flesh off so that I have two relatively thin fillets. Then I just slice these into fish shaped strips.

I have seen various methods of preparing/preserving herring strip, but I don't really like any of them, I think fresh is best.  You can use thread to tie one end on to the hook, this stops it falling off too easily.  It should work OK for perch, works for pike and zander.  Pike will take legered herring well. mackerel will probably work well too and the skin is tougher.

[Traditionalist]

Just musing on what somebody else wrote.  Perch are not ambush predators like pike, they are chasers and harriers. They will chase and harry shoals of small fish. Usually they will engulf the prey in their large mouths, but it is still better to use a size of artificial that suits and not to have too long a bait, or at least ensure that the hook is properly placed. On long lures a rear hook is worthwhile. The size of artificial is also quite important, I virtually never go over three inches and often a much smaller size is better. The drop shot rigs which are mounted fore and middle ( as shown below) seem to get the best hook-ups;



( From  http://www.60secondangler.com/articles/dropshot.cfm )

although I like to get the nose of the bait well forward.  This does not mask the hook strangely enough, when a fish takes it is usually well hooked.

If you use ordinary hooks then the palomar knot will mount them properly;



there are a variety of "special" drop-shot hooks available but I have had no problems with ordinary straight eyed hooks.

http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Standout_Drop_Shot_Hook_Red_Alert/descpage-SDSHRAL.html