Fishing
Class size of perch schools on the rise
Yellow perch have become golden for Western New York fishing folk.
Two lakes, Erie and Chautauqua, have gone through varying number and size developments that have left area anglers with bountiful buckets of well-rounded ringbacks.
Lake Erie
Lake Erie had a history of fine perch fishing after the collapse of “blue pike” fishing in the 1940s. Sometime in the early ’90s, yellow perch showed a similar demise, but they didn’t disappear.
Anglers stopped targeting perch as water clarity increased with zebra and quagga mussel filtration. Anglers continually asked experts such as Don Einhouse at the State Department of Environmental Conservation Lake Erie Unit if the perch fishing would ever return. Over the past decade, Einhouse repeatedly said the perch fishery would eventually improve, but probably not return to conditions seen back in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. He was so right.
Today, boaters can come into launch sites from Buffalo to Barcelona with limit or near-limit catches of perch all measuring at or well above 10 inches. But catching tactics have changed. Decades ago, perch spawned in near-shore shallows and boaters often could row out to depths of 5-10 feet and ring in ringbacks until sunset. Today, those same fish do their spring spawning out deeper in Erie’s gin-clear eastern basin waters.
That’s how the Smyczynski family spent Father’s Day morning on a most enjoyable perch outing.
“A guy at the [Sturgeon Point] launch told us he got perch at 52 feet off the point, we went out there, and got ’em,” said David Smyczynski of their outing that started at 7:15 a. m. and ended before 10 a. m.
“We were off to breakfast by 10 because we ran out of minnows,” he said of their family fish foray that ended with 60 keepers for son Jared, father Robert Smyczynski of Hamburg, and brother Don Smyczynski of East Aurora. They were first to drop anchor and when they left two hours later a flotilla of eight boaters was in the area and pulling in perch.
Results in the Southtowns Walleye Association Perch Tournament on May 16 also confirm a substantial perch presence. While many entrants fished off Cattaraugus Creek, first-place winner David Shaffer of Grand Island worked the deeper drop-offs outside of Seneca Shoals to weigh in a 5.96-pound total for five fish and take the top prize of $325.
Shaffer’s advice: “You’ve got to have good electronics and know how to read [the screen] when they’re tight to the bottom. I saw many boats run over good schools without seeing [the perch].” His partner, Jim Dolly, finished in fourth place.
Dave Barus of East Aurora finished a close second with 5.91 pounds. After buying buckets of golden shiners, a dip of emerald shiners on the way out of Cattaraugus Creek gave him enough bait to try both.
“The emeralds outperformed the goldens 10 to 1,” he concluded.
Bruce Wager of Lakeview, another lifelong Erie perch addict similar to Barus, finished a solid third with 5.55 pounds, and Herb Schultz, perch-prospecting pioneer among Erie anglers, took fifth place with a 4.56-pound total.
Right now, boaters anchor over 40-to 60-foot depths off Seneca Shoals, Sturgeon Point, Cattaraugus Creek, and either side of Dunkirk Harbor. Using light lines, fluorocarbon leaders, light-and ultra-light-tipped rods, they watch the sonar screen for fish and bait movements. Perch generally hug bottom. But when schools of bait move up, ringbacks often cruise just below those schools and hold class well off bottom for long periods.
Emerald shiners shine best as bucket-filler baits, a topic of next week’s column.
Chautauqua Lake
For a half a century or more, Western New York anglers traveled to the southwest corner of the state to fish Chautauqua for the biggest and smallest of fish. Muskellunge fishing even attracted the state’s governor on one occasion; crappie (calico bass) put hundreds of boats over shoreline shallows from Jamestown to Mayville each spring.
But the lake’s ever-abundant perch populations seemed stunted year after year. Not today. For the past three to four years, anglers on ice and while plying waters in boats around both the south and north basins have brought back buckets of increasingly bigger yellow perch.
“Last year we saw them [perch catches] run an average of 8-10 inches; this year I think it’s more like 9-11 inches,” said Lisa Green. She and husband Brian fish the lake whenever they can get away from their “store,” Happy Hooker Bait& Tackle in Ashville Bay.
Pressure from heavy schools of white perch, predation of larger game fish such as muskies, bass, and walleye, shifts in the forage base (bait schools and bottom life), and many other reasons have been given. Whatever the cause, a sudden switch from fingerling-sized adults to filleting-sized plump perch has panned out for panfishing Chautauqua.
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