By
the end of an extremely long day suffering through cold temperatures, without
even a wind flag to show for a “monumental effort”, I was beginning to question
why I had even decided to come on this particular ice fishing trip. As
predicted, the temperature fell steadily throughout the day and as the sun dipped
below the horizon, a bone chilling north wind kicked up spin drift further
hampering the laborious task of picking up ice traps and trekking the mile back
to the truck.
To say I
was disheartened, by the inactivity of the day, may have been an understatement
and while the sport is called “fishing” and not “catching”, it was painfully
obvious, as I trudged through the blinding blizzard, that something fundamental
had changed in my understanding of the sport of fishing from when I had been a
child. At some point in my road to adulthood, I had come to believe that catching
BIG fish was more important than catching LOTS of fish.
I was
three years old when Dad took me ice fishing for the first time on a small body
of water in Washington
County called Vose Pond (DeLorme’s
The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer (MAG), Map 37, C-1). This small pickerel pond sits
just a short snowmobile ride from my childhood home and hot fishing action was
always guaranteed. Throughout my youth, I enjoyed many such outing with my family
ice fishing on various pickerel and perch ponds throughout Down East, including
some of my fondest memories ice fishing Conic Lake
(Map 36, C-5).
As I grew
older, however, I began to evolve beyond this “childish” view of ice fishing
and instead of desiring to catch lots of fish, I decided it was more important
to catch one big fish or perhaps none at all, if that was the price needed to
catch a trophy. This practice to suffer through long, cold hours of fishing for
that one glimmer of hope at a trophy continued for years until that bone
chilling day, trudging through that blizzard when my childhood memories of ice
fishing transported me back to a time when ice fishing wasn’t about a trophy
fish, it was simply about catching tons of fish.
Helping
me along on this renewed path are my two children, who at 8 and 10 are simply
not going to enjoy sitting on the ice for hours without some degree of
excitement. This means that in order to provide for them a fun day of ice
fishing, they need some degree of diversion and that means catching LOTS of
fish. Fortunately, finding lots of fish isn’t a problem if one isn’t picky
about the type of fish they are targeting.
Washington
County contains many bodies of water that breed healthy Yellow Perch and Pickerel
populations and anglers looking for a fun day need only fish these waters to be
practically guaranteed non-stop action. Last season, the tribe and I fished one
particular yellow perch filled body of water and logged 135 flags! While every
flag certainly did not yield a fish, we caught enough yellow perch where by the
end of the evening I was tired of cleaning them!
Speaking
of cleaning perch, this chore has always been one that I certainly did not
relish until I researched perch cleaning methods on the Internet. Google
“How to clean a perch is 10 seconds”, for an interesting video on how to
quickly prepare freshly caught perch for the frying pan!
A
gregarious species, yellow perch often travel in large schools, making fishing
for this delectable treat exciting once anglers can locate them. Rarely taken
from water more than 30 feet deep, yellow perch prefer living in shallow waters
so targeting areas with water less than 30 feet is necessary. Begin by cutting
a lot of holes as this helps to quickly determine where the perch are hiding.
Jig a hole for 5-6 minutes and then move to the next. If using ice fishing
traps, start with lines set at different depth and once fishing start hitting adjust
lines to best target the same depth at which fish are biting. Because perch travel
together, one hole can quickly yield multiple hook-ups. Once a flag goes up, a
caught fish is immediately placed on the ice and using a jig pole the anglers
drops a small lure down the hole. Schooling perch quickly hit the jig and are
rapidly pulled out and iced. This really saves on live bait, especially when
the perch are voraciously feeding!
Yellow Perch
are a relatively diminutive species of game fish, so anglers shouldn’t expect
to catch many fish over 5-8 ounces. Occasionally, healthy perch waters will
yield large adults weighing 10 ounces but this is much less common. Any Yellow
Perch over 1 pound is a real beauty and always be on the look out for any fish
that will beat the monstrous 1 pound 10
ounces behemoth taken out of Worthley Pond in East Peru ,
it currently stands as the state record.
Many Washington County
waters contain healthy Yellow Perch populations. Here is a listing of some of
the most prolific: Barrows Lake, Bowles Lake, Fulton Lake, Greenland Pond (Big), Fifth Machias Lake, Otter Lake, Upper
Oxbrook Lake, Pickerel Pond, Possum Pond, Rand Lake, Roaring Lake and Sucker
Lake.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for posting a comment. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated!