Interesting observation

[guff]

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. 

[hermit]

It's been a few years since I've fished over there but I'm a big fan of the Bomber Slab in that lake.  It's got a shorter wider profile than most jigging spoons and is well suited to the smaller fish in Keuka.

[guff]

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

[justtracytrolling]

There is a negative relationship with alewife/sawbelly species and perch. The higher perch numbers are reflective of lower sawbelly numbers. They compete for the same food.

Makes sense...otisco has an unreal alewive population and probably the worst perch fishing of the eastern 5 finger lakes....

[alwysfishn]

I have seen times over the years especially in the mid seventies when the sawbellys seemed to be gone from Keuka and under the lights at night all we saw were small perch 1 to 2 inches long. The lake would be absolutely full of them. They would slip right through the dip nets so it was hard to dip any for bait. Sawbellys were scarce to buy. The old fella in Hammonsport that we bought them from couldn't get them from the lake. The sawbellys we bought from Tony's bait shop in Bath were from Waneta lake as he couldn't get Keuka ones either. Sometimes he didn't have bellys so we would go to the bait shop on Waneta to get sawbellys. The lakers didn't seem to like the larger Waneta bellys as much and fishing was slow. Sometimes we would just buy shinners an hope to net a few bellys or perch. Either way we kept the Seth Green rigs full.

Edited September 28, 2015 by alwysfishn

[Nautitroller]

We fished the FLTA On Keuka this Sunday and fishing was dismal at best. We boated 13 Lakers not one of which were over 2lbs. We did drop two fish that may have gone 4lbs but what we didn't catch were the huge marks hanging from 80-130' down. The small fish we did keep for the weigh in had empty stomachs and one did cough up a small 2" perch. Our hot lure was a gold scorpion with perch colors on a seven color core. All lines took fish except our one rigger, changed depth, lures (perch pin minnows even) and leads, nothing, funny how one rigger can be cold like that. Largest Laker of the day for the tourney was under 5 lbs. The fish I did filet were ready to spawn and had fairly loose eggs.

Thanks for the tips on the perch minnows, worked but we couldn't get the big-uns to hit.

Sent from my C771 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[dawsonscreek]

The perch/alewife correlation is not only that they compete for the same food, but that they are food for each other. Alewives feed on any type of fry they can get, so chances are perch fry are a common part of their diet.

[Sk8man]

A perch rather than sawbelly diet could in conjunction with high numbers of lake trout (competition for food sources) explain the smaller size of the lakers too as in Skaneateles where there aren't sawbellies few lakers reach large sizes with the exception of a very few giants that probably eat anything they want including other smaller lakers.