It had been a long time since I had been fishing with Junior (Andy?s dad).? Andy & I grew up fishing with our fathers on Peter Lake in the metro area or on one of the many lakes by our Grand Rapids cabin.? Even though we could not convince my dad to get on the water with us (chicken old Navy man), Andy, Junior and I planned on getting Junior on some jumbo perch that Rocky Reef had been kicking out.?
I had picked them up around 6:30 and off we went.? A quick stop for breakfast and some bait and we were at Rockman?s at 9:00 just as planned.? With the winter storm coming in for later on Sunday we pretty much new we would have to hunt them down a little more then the weekend before.?
We started off out at the second hump in 32 feet of water where we found them last week.? Slow going and only a few bites and a few small ones, those came on a simple, small, green glow jig on a minnow.? We moved back towards shore and found that they were slow there also.? Rockman stopped by to say hi and that it was slow going for him also and that he had only a couple in the bucket.?
We left Junior to man the 4 man house and Dude and I headed over to the little group that was forming in front of Eddy?s.? Remembering the luck we had last week on the very outside edge?s of groups, we set up 40-50 feet away from anyone on the outer edge.? Two holes and 3 bites later (one borderline fish landed) and we were heading back to pick up camp and move on over.? I drill about 15 holes (4 for the house) and I was planning on hunting them down?? First hole (which was closest to our houses) had nothing but lookers, the second hole (which was the furthest away from everyone) had more aggressive fish.? First 2 were borderline toss backs.? A few more misses and a few more 10? keepers.? A few more misses and they slowed down and would not even tap it at all.? I took a brief warm up period in the house and watching Andy loose something big that took tons of drag and was giving a good fight.? I went back out and on the first drop of the jig and a aggressive one took the bait, 11? keeper.? I bought that to the bucket and back out again.? I dropped it down and then finally I raised the jig and minnow and here came an aggressive one.? It hit like a freight train and grabbed the LX-3 and tossed it a side to not to tangle.? It came thorough the hole and was the biggest perch I had ever caught / seen in person.? 13 1/2+? and fat, fat, fat?? It weighed 1.5 lbs on the Rapala scale at home.? I could not imagine what that 2+ lb perch at the Liberty contest looked like in person, as I thought this thing was a monster.
We ended up with 9 perch from 10? ? 13" but was a slow day over all.? Ice was fine out on the lake but very wet!!!? Rockman?s landing going on was besides wet, just fine, but Eddy?s was 8+? of water for the last 100 feet and had some nice ice heaves building.? There might be one last weekend next Saturday on the way home from skiing, but not too sure, especially with this heavy snow that we got overnight.?
It was nice to get out with Junior again and hopefully there is less time between the next fishing outing with him.
10", 11", 13+"Biggen - 13+"