I'm no expert at live baiting for perch however i have tried various methods , i was getting some very good fish on dead baits a year or so back and thought i would try lives to see if i could improve my catch rate. I had been using deads at distance so started fishing lives the same way i.e. on the bottom, nothing happened to the lives but i was still getting fish on another rod rigged with dead bait. My assumption was that the livebait was in effect hidding in the weed growth on the bottom, so i rigged a float/leger rig , i don't know if that is the correct term, but the set-up was a float on the surface a weight on the bottom and the bait tethered on a trace in between .This worked to extent but it still didn't catch more fish than the deads.
So i tend to stick to dead baits , I'm sure lives would work else ware but they just don't seem to be effective on the water i fish,or perhaps I'm still fishing them wrong.
But one thing is for sure fish baits do pick out the bigger fish, for me the lobs just bring small fish and roach.
P.s. no pike on the waters i fish.