FishCity.tv Urban Fishing by Taro Murata

My buddy Jay Martin (one of Canada’s top tournament anglers) and I fished this day in the April CFT federation perch event held on Lake Simcoe, we had a blast.  We finished in forth place thanks to getting onto a pattern.  Most people would say what?? A pattern for panfish?? Yup even panfish can be patterned.  As we fished throughout the day, Jay noticed that the fish we were on weren’t big enough to get us a check.

Jay is great at knowing when to stay or leave, he has so much tournament experience, about 90% of the time his decisions are bang on.  So I knew we had to start adjusting. I then remembered seeing some giant female fish that were surrounded by schools of tiny males a few days earlier, so I mentioned to Jay that we should maybe try for a few of those fish to help beef up our limit.  We checked out that area but they were gone.  Jay said that he had seen the same scenerio but in a different spot.  We checked it out, it was a sandy bottom.  As we approached the area I looked down and saw big dark patches, I thought they were patches of weeds until I cast in the patch and saw the whole patch shift as my jig plunked down.  Bingo we found them.  Jay and I stayed there for the last hour of the day and we managed to catch a couple giant perch, one just over two pound and one just under.

When you caught one of these giants it was hilarious because there were tons on tiny males that would follow your fish to the boat and when you went to net the big female you’d also scoop up a ton of tiny males.  I had never seen anything like this before perch fishing.  The ticket to getting these giants was to make long casts with 4lb bass pro fluorocarbon line with  bubblegum coloured Finesse Fish rigged 0n a 1/16 oz Lunker City head.  We made sure our casts were in these dark patches. Once your bait was in the patch the trick was to pop the jig with a swift upward motion of the rod tip.  That snap or pop would trigger these big lazy hens into smashing the bait.  We didn’t catch as many fish in this area as our first but the good decision making and size of the fish here really helped us to boost our overall weight.  The next time you’re out on the water keep your eyes peeled and might see something different that others are missing!