Fish Baits for Perch

[bluerinse]

Fresh dead bait can be good for large perch, I have not tried frozen deads, and I would think they are a poor choice of bait under normal circumstances.

I think if you find the perch feeding (as you said about the pray fish scattering) I think a frozen dead fished shallow on a float would have a good chance as the perch will be ripping around chasing fish and should just grab what would look like a fish previously hit by another perch.

 

Just a thought

[Steve Burke]

Obviously I've got a lot of confidence in deadbaits for perch. Indeed, there's hardly a water I've tried them on when they haven't been successful. However the success rate does vary from water to water. I've done particularly well with them on commercials, where they've produced a bigger average size than lives. Like with pike, this is partly down to a lower number of small to medium-sized fish, but some of the bigger perch do appear to be more prone to scavenge and thus more likely to take a deadbait.

 

A small number of writers have reported success on sea baits for perch. Despite an awful lot of trying I've had very little. It may be that they work on just the odd water.

 

I've not done very well on frozen freshwater deads either, although miles better than on sea baits. It may be that freezing them destroys their effectiveness, as even when I've frozen them within a couple of hours of catching them they haven't worked nearly as well as freshly-killed deads.

 

Incidentally, you haven't got to use whole deads; half baits work very well indeed.

 

Thanks for the link to the programme I did for Sky, Andrew. I didn't realise it was on YouTube. For those who haven't seen it, half the programme is on deadbaiting for perch. I shalln't spoil it by revealing what was caught.

 

Martin's obviously already read it, but for those of you who haven't here's a link to my perch bait article here on Angler's Net: http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/Coarse-Fishing-Articles/428.html There's a fair bit more there on the subject of deadbaits for perch.

[wayne baker]

Cant recall ever catching any perch on a sea bait. Live baits amd lobs would be my first choice. Maybe red maggots as well if theres no to much small stuff about. When i was a kid we use to catch big perch by fishing for tiddlers and not reeling them in straight away and waiting for a perch to take them. Thinking back it wasnt particualy clever as we never thought of te likelyhood of a pike grabbing the bait.

[Dick Dastardly]

So all pretty much agreed there then? Same can certainly be said for Zander as well in regards to sea deads,frozen deads etc.I wonder why Zeds and Perch are that way when Pike dont care?

[Andy Macfarlane]

I seem to remember reading a long time ago that pike may have function that allows them to analyse potential foodstuffs before actually eating them, like an enhanced sense of smell. I think the submandibular pores may possess this function, although I've also read these pits may serve along the same lines as their lateral line, although why a fish with a lateral line as long as a pike's would need another passive sonar system, is anyone's guess. Finding evidence to support these ideas is almost as difficult as finding evidence on saliva and anti-coagulants, so at present, this is no more than theory.

Anyway, if this function does exist, it could explain why a pike is less discerning about what it eats, like sea-baits, that it has no natural recognition of.

[bluerinse]

So all pretty much agreed there then? Same can certainly be said for Zander as well in regards to sea deads,frozen deads etc.I wonder why Zeds and Perch are that way when Pike dont care?

 

Its funny really when you think about it, perch in the Baltic sea will take sea baits as they swim with them, smelt, herring and mackerel make up the natural diet of Baltic perch (and pike) It must be with perch a case of what your used too, I wonder if in any of the uk tidal reaches if perch feed on sea fish?

[Andy Macfarlane]

I'd think so Blue. I've switched perch onto sweetcorn after a few days or pre-baiting, so familiarity definitely plays some part in what some fish will and will not eat. Roach are much the same IMO. They'll tune into new foods gradually over the space of a few days and it seems that once some of the tribe have taken a liking to a new food type, they'll all have a go. How this confidence transfers amongst the shoal, I do not know but they can't all have tried my free offerings. A few cans of corn only goes so far. Perhaps it's visual confidence?? If one fish is confident about eating something new, perhaps that behaviour spreads visually throughout and so the rest of the shoal follows suit? "If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me!" kind of thing.