Has anyone tried drop shotting for Perch?

[stooby]

On the section of river I am thinking about, targetting the margins could be the best place and can be some of the deeper areas. I think I will give it a go and let you all know the results! good or bad... :-) thanks for all your help/opinions, all noted and taken on board as always.

 

Cheers,

 

Stu...

[Matthew Simmons]

I tried hard a few sessions in the autumn before the frosts on a section of the K&A known for its perch. Like other posters I failed miserably - its a great method for jack pike - I did have follows from perch - but they were chasing the lead!

M

[AddictedToScopex]

You use wire and you may ruin your chances of catching the perch.Its not the pike I am wanting to catch.If I was catching the perch regularly but getting the pike/bite offs as well I woulkd try wire to see for sure if I could still catch the perch or not. But untill I can catch them regularly I dont want to take any risks. Iam looking for alternative venues at the moment where there are more perch less pike.

Yes I understand that. I would like to try the wire when spring/summer come around and see just how much it effects the perch fishing.

[JV44]

Shared a couple of hauls of perch to this method with Rusty although i don`t think we were doing it religously to the drop shotting dictum ,We had 50 odd Perch and 3 pike hits 2 landed and one bite off so [dons tin helmet and hits the dirt] i wouldn`t bother with wire unless the bite off numbers became unacceptable......if we had fished lobs i am sure with those numbers we would have had more bite offs by far .

We cast to far bank features and slow retreived which worked well for us at that point in time and on that venue ,Give it a go if that doesn`t then twitch the bait without moving the weight....proper drop shotting....

[AddictedToScopex]

We cast to far bank features and slow retreived which worked well for us at that point in time and on that venue ,Give it a go if that doesn`t then twitch the bait without moving the weight....proper drop shotting....

 

 

 

I did a similar thing although I would plop it into a far bank feature and twitch it for a minute and then retrieve very slowly while twitching it.

[Dick Dastardly]

Most of mine has been done "true" style by keeping the lead stationary and just working the lure.I think the distance you can fish the method is really dictated by the depth so that you've still got a good angle.Also I dont think my really light spliced tip rods would work the lures well too far out despite using braided mainline. The big attraction to it for me (as a tactic) was that you could fish a lure in the "strike zone" as the US anglers call it (ie next to the feature you expect the fish to be holding up against) infinitely. Also when I have tried the "retrieve" style it has brought me far more jack attacks!

 

Its a fascinating method and the ultra light tackle and just a pocket of soft lures really is a nice way to grab a few hours. I'm going to have a go at other less piked waters! and come summer try a few times with wire to see if I can get the perch on it without having to lose endless rigs to pike.

 

Most of my intentional perching has been done with live baits and allways at the back end of the season (simply because I would start to run out of pike baits so one day a week would be given to bait catching and I would have a couple of perch baits out as the water held good ones but no pike.) Be interested to here Steve Burke's views on times of year for Perch and if he thinks that our lure fishing/drop shotting would be more effective at certain times of year?

[Steve Burke]

I've done very little dropshotting so I'm not really qualified to comment. I have done a fair amount of jigging for perch though and found it an effective method.

 

The problem at Wingham is the number of pike, that I deliberately keep on the high side. When lure fishing there in the winter I catch many more pike than perch. However it's still a good way to find the perch. I used this method in 2004, and then Peter Rogers and I moved in with baits which proved more productive than lures. Every single one of these perch was over 3lbs, although we did have a few recaptures.

 

A couple of other interesting points was that all the fish came in the afternoon, and they stayed in the area all the rest of the winter. Unfortunately they weren't there the following year!

 

However without going lure fishing I wouldn't have had much chance of finding the perch in the time available - Wingham is 40 acres of bars and sunken islands!

[Dick Dastardly]

I meant more in general Steve ie what time of year do you think that perch are most active?

[Phone]

All,

 

Of all the people NOT qualified to comment on drop shot fishing I may be at the top of the list. My rig and choice of bait for drop shot fishing has always been at the hands of a guide. Mostly, there is NO trace involved!! On the mainline, in this order, bobber stopper; hook (usually a Gammy octopus size 4 - 6); another bobber stopper; aproximately 12 - 24 inches of mainline; weight (varies sizes) secured at the very end of the mainline. When the depth is established (from the bottom of the lake up) often the hook is secured to the mainline without any bobber stoppers. Bait has darn near ALWAYS been soft plastic (like the Gulp products or the thingies Androo likes). Whilst jigging, the bite is on the drop - ohh - 70% of time(?).

 

We don't have perch, this was/is for walleye (zander).

 

So, my question to all of you is why do you have a trace at all? Do you use a smaller, lighter line trace to encourage line shy perch to bite? Are you "still fishing" with a drop shot rig? If you are still (stationary) fishing why do you call it a "drop shot" rig?

 

BUDGIE, From memory, this choice was made based more on water color than temperature. Clearer water was drop shot water (I think(?).

 

Phone

NO EXPERT!

[Steve Burke]

I meant more in general Steve ie what time of year do you think that perch are most active?

 

They're most active in summer unless it's baking hot. However I've caught them with lures in every month of the year.