guff

Thanks Alec (Hermit). Just one more lure to buy. Never stops. - Al

Wow - That explains a lot. Huge numbers of perch out in deep water and show up big time on a fish finder. Who would of thunk. May have to change jigging tactics based on that. Smaller jigs for one thing.

Thanks Butch 7977. Guess that confirms that the perch minnows do move out over deep water. Pretty risky behavior I would say. Hard to imagine that a school of 1-2" perch would show up as a good sized bait ball on a fish finder but who knows. Sure would be a lot of perch.

Butch7977 - FYI Did see a good number of bait balls north of the state park boat launch last Tuesday. I remember thinking "did all the sawbellies in the lake move to the north end?" Nothing compared to the north end of Seneca earlier this year however. Also Butch, were all those perch minnows you were seeing out in deep water (say over 70 feet) ? That would answer one of my questions if they were.

Another interesting observation. The laker that had eaten the 14 perch minnows had an entirely different color meat than the 2 other smaller lakers I caught in the same place at the same time. The perch eater had a very distinct orange/salmon color flesh while the other 2 lakers that I did not see any perch inside were the normal white colored flesh??????

I fished Keuka all day yesterday (jigging) for lake trout. Was a very slow day. Had some missed hits earlier but had a late afternoon short bite and ended up with 4 in the boat. I saw lots of lakers and bait balls on the fish finder. The interesting part was when I gutted a 25 incher I found 14 1" to 2" perch minnows inside. I caught her (had eggs) in 114 fow in the middle of the lake. Water temperature was 71 degrees on top.That begs a number of questions, at least for me. 1- I would assume the perch were in warmer water near the top. That means the laker had to move up out of it's preferred temperature waters and maybe was feeding near the surface? 2- Were the perch minnows way out in deep water or did the laker move into shallow water to get them? 3- Should we be fishing with perch minnows near the surface? 4- Is this why Keuka lakers seem to taste better than lakers from other waters (I like grilling all of them however) because they eat perch rather than sawbellies? 5- Is this why the bite was so tough? I was using a 3.5 " tube and they were actually eating 1-2 inch minnows? Any thoughts out there?

Has been sold

Bump

Sorry. No GPS

Only used once. Bought 2/2015 for $250 plus tax and shipping. Includes transducer. Does not have wide angle cone (83 KHz) which I have to have for lake trout jigging. $175.

Absolutely huge number of lakers and bait out from Belhurst (north end) in 60 to 80 fow. Saw bait breaking the surface at times. Spent most of the day getting my new fish finder dialed in so did not get a lot of lakers but did get a 31 incher. Chartreuse 5 inch fluke on 1 ounce jig was working.