Is it to early for Perch to be shoaling up for the winter?

[Dales]

As many of you will know, once you find a large concentration of Perch in winter often massed up in a deep area of a lake or pit you can go on to raid that honey hole over and over again through out the winter months until they disperse in spring in move in to warmer water.

 

i recently came across what i can only describe as a higher then normal contration of a Perch in a still water i fish. The area is known for Perch and has produced some nice fish for me in the past. A few fish at dusk or dawn being an average session and maybe 8 to dozen fish over a few hours being a good session in the right conditions. However, on a recent trip for want of a better phrase "I bagged up big time" I have fished this swim enough times to know that this is not normal at least for me and I doubt it holds this amount of fish all the time. However, I have a sneeky feeling that they may hang around for a while, well I am hoping that this is so and it might fit with a theory that I have had milling around for a few years that Perch and maybe other fish such as Zander can move around from place to place before ultimately finding a winter area to hold up. I have thought that they may have a staging post where they mass up before moving off to over winter. From my little knowledge of predator fishing, I think that Perch often appear to stay put for longer then other predator fish like Pike and Zander who often appear to move around more in the milder winter months following bait or herding them in to bays etc. Sometimes the Perch will be with the other predators and sometimes I am not so sure and wonder do they do there own thing. Their prey size requirements and ability and willingness to feed on smaller items mean I dont always think they are always where all the Roach & Rudd are shoaled up. The best winter quarters for Pike may not be the same for Perch although often they would be.

 

The obvious reason for my recent spot of good luck is that I am a top angler but taking off my modesty hat, there had to be something other then fishing skills or water craft for my good fortune. For some reason my swim had to have been stuffed full of Perch. Had this happened in November or December then my first thought would be that I have hit the mother load and tracked down the winter quarters of the Perch on this water. But it's not winter or even Autumn so that is unlikely or is it?

 

Three times before on other waters I have thought I had located the areas that the Perch hole up in winter around Sept/Oct. I was right on one water and they stayed there all winter and I could have a session almost anytime throughout that winter and would catch. However the other times I was wrong and I could not buy a bite from those areas from December to March. However they seemed to stay put during Sept, Oct and November. What all these areas had in common was it was deep water 10 ft plus. So this has got me thinking do Perch start to shoal up in deepish water in Autumn prior to moving to even deeper water in the Winter? If this does happen Is there an ideal depth for this shoaling up if it does happen? Can it happen on some waters even early in the year? Is there a standard depth for them to shoal up in Autumn or early winter maybe 10 to 12 feet and they only go deeper if its a harsh winter? Is there a transition zone and they shoal up in an area of say 10 ft because it is near a deeper hole that they will ultimately migrate to once it turns bitter? If I am on to something about a "staging post" area of deepish water for the winter then I may have come across this area and they might be around for a while.

 

Plus what makes a swim an ideal Perch location at different times of the year? Is it food supply, cover, light levels, depth?

 

I love a good Perch thread, so any experience of any one coming across big clusters of Perch at any time of the year and any thoughts of why this might happen?

[Steve Walker]

The deep water swims on my local pit are where I've been filming with the water wolf, and they're full of perch at the moment.

[Anderoo]

Short answer yes! It's the middle of summer!

 

Maybe there was a concentrated food supply that you dropped onto.