Perch Fishing with Shane and Uncle Ron August 1, 2009

It started with a phone call from Uncle Ron, Friday night. He asked if I wanted to meet Shane at Portage, and go Perch Fishing! Naturally, I said sure!, and began gathering my fishing gear!

Up at 4:45 am, I picked up Uncle Ron, and headed for Portage. It's to be my first time on Lake Michigan, and in Shane's boat. He has a 21' Lund, that is an angler's dream. Weather was in the 70's, but rain to come later. Shane bought 10 dozen minnows!

Not knowing what kind of rig to use, Shane gave me two rigs that he had prepared. Two hooks, one with purple beads, one with green beads.

Shane circled around a bit, looking for fish on his Lorance, and picked a spot. Uncle Ron's lines were already in the water!

I was on the Port side, Uncle Ron on the Starboard side, Shane at the Bow. I finally dropped both lines in, just outside of the "mouth", by the Portage launch.


Uncle Ron spotted a boat named "Bite Me", who is a friend of Paul's. We pulled up to them and chatted. They decide to travel over to the "donut", near the dunes.


After awhile, nothing was happening. Laughing, Shane said "Uncle Donn, if you're the reason we're not catching any fish, I'll never invite you back!"


Wham! I caught the first throwback. Then we all started getting hits! I got a double on one rod, the purple-bead rig. We were all tossing perch into the live well. The bite was going pretty strong.


Shane got a phone call from "Bite Me", and they were getting bigger perch, so we pulled up and traveled at about 1000 miles per hour over to the "donut". (What a fast boat he has!)


We arrived in one piece, and anchored right over a giant school of perch. It was high speed fishing! I got 3 more doubles! At some point, Shane laughed "Uncle Donn, if you're going to catch all the fish, I'll never invite you back again!"

We would bait our hooks, drop the line, and get bites on the drop. Pull up, toss the fish into the box, bait, and drop!


Shane made a purple rig for Uncle Ron, and it was working just as well for him! The green bead rig was not doing anything, so I pulled the rod. It was enough to keep up with my purple rig!


We quickly made our limit, so we culled the smaller fish out of the box. The weather began changing, and suddenly we had waves in the 3 to 5 foot range! And just like that, the bite stopped! Suddenly, I couldn't remember what it was like to catch a fish. How does the rod move when a fish is on?

We decided to head back home, passing an ore boat, the Winfred Sykes, out of Indiana Harbor. We drove around it and were amazed at how quiet it's engines were! It seemed about 2 football fields in length!

Back at the launch, we just got the boat out when it began to rain. Perfect timing!

(Maybe I'll get invited back someday?)