West Point Yellow Perch Stack Up Much Like Crappie

The author discovered that yellow perch were swimming in West Point by accident, but he’s since learned how to target and catch them. Photo by Adobe Stock, By Neil.

By Jeffrey James Rowland

Lake Cascade in Idaho claims that their lake holds the biggest ones. On Lake Michigan, they catch them in huge numbers off the Navy Pier in Chicago. Thousands are also pulled through the ice every year on Devils Lake in North Dakota. These places and many more across the upper Midwest, Northeast and Western parts of this great country hold this coveted fish.

What are these anglers going after?

Perch. A tasty little panfish that are typically caught in big numbers.

So, what about Georgia? I cannot speak to every lake in our state, but I can tell you they are in West Point Lake in what seems to be a healthy population.

As I am writing this, I know I am not the first angler to discover perch at West Point, but I may be one of the few who now targets them.

It was never my plan to be a perch angler. I didn’t even know they were in the lake, but that was about to change.

My adult son was visiting in the winter of 2018. He was the one who started the whole perch thing with me, and it was all generated by a simple request. He wanted to reenact a childhood experience of packing up a creek and catching crappie. Our family did this many times when our kids were little until we finally got a boat.

“No way,” I said to myself as he made his request. I knew I’d rather be sitting in a boat than walking creekbanks and packing gear, but when your adult children want to do things, you go along just so you can spend time with them.

“OK, let’s do it,” I said.

It was late February and the dogwoods had not yet bloomed on this nice, warm late-winter day. Temperatures were reaching the lower 70s.

We organized our gear for the trip, and after a purchase of 3-dozen small minnows, we arrived at our destination and began hiking up Beech Creek, a feeder to West Point Lake.

We came to a bend that had some visible structure, and I said to him, “Let’s give this spot a try.”

We had two rods a piece, both of his had bobbers and minnows, and I had one, as well, that I would keep an eye on while pitching some small jigs. I like using Thill pencil bobbers this time of year. They have proven to be more productive during cold-water time frames as the thin body provides less resistance to fish that are not that aggressive. All bobber rigs were set at different depths as we were trying to check creek depth and find some fish. He had the deepest bobber. It was set at about 7 feet. While throwing my jig, I would occasionally look over at his bobbers. I noticed the one set the deepest was laying on its side

“Hey,” I said. “Probably need to set that one up higher, it’s dragging the bottom.”

I was not prepared for what happened next. He followed my instructions and began to reel in the line to reset his depth, but then he exclaimed, “Hey, something’s on here.”

A crappie was on my mind as I watched as he reeled in the first fish of the day, and I was more than just surprised at his catch. It was a big yellow perch close to 1 pound. I didn’t even know they were in West Point.

“That’s a pretty nice perch,” my son said.

I am a nerdy fish guy who reads all the state records, and I began to explain to him that the state record was somewhere around 2.5 pounds, and his was probably close to a pound. Two things I knew at that moment. That fish was going in the bucket, and we are now focusing on catching more perch.

Years ago, I had some friends who put me on them at a lake up north. I knew they were delectable table fare, and if there were more, I would need to adjust to improve our odds.

Perch will hold close to the bottom, so I set the three poles with bobbers at about a 6-foot depth since the creek appeared to be about 7 feet deep. Next, I began focusing on more depth and closer to the bottom with my jig. Any time I fish, I try to get a picture in my mind of what is going on under the water. Perch are a schooling fish, and I was picturing a school of prespawn perch moving into our location in that creek.

I needed to think differently about my hook set, too. Perch do not have a mouth like a crappie that inhales its catch. With a smaller mouth, the perch have to bite their prey, hold it, then turn it to ingest. Once they make the turn, they will swallow whole, and if it is a minnow, it usually goes down head-first. If you try to set the hook with the first tap, you typically pull the bait right out of their mouths. While jig fishing, I was prepared that if I felt a hit, I knew to pause, drop my rod tip a touch, give a quick one-two count, then set. It is difficult to resist the desire to set the hook at first feel, but if you don’t, you usually miss them. I instructed my son not to set the hook right away if his bobber went down.

“Give them a three count after it goes under, then set the hook,” I said.

My adjustments proved well as we spent the rest of that day catching many perch. The majority of them were in the 6- to 7-inch range, but out of every five caught, a keeper would be landed. None of them were bigger than my son’s first one. I had a great time with my son that day, and when we arrived at home, I began to prepare a meal.

We probably caught 25 to 30 fish on our trip, but only five were big enough to get filleted. My wife started peeling potatoes, and after I had cleaned the fish, I began to mix my secret batter and started gathering ingredients for a green bean casserole. We shared a wonderful supper and enjoyed our time together as he would be flying back home the next day.

That late February day in 2018 was fun, but it would be almost another year before I would even think about perch again. Perch and crappie are not usually on my priority list when I am angling.

If a crappie will eat it, so will a yellow perch. Keep that in mind as you choose your tackle. Photo by Adobe Stock, By Verbbaitum.

There are four boat ramps I use on West Point that are less than 10 minutes from me: Clark, Ringer, Sunny Point and Georgia Park. I am a catch-and-release angler who likes to pursue largemouth and spots. However, when it comes to eating fish, I have a picky pallet, so crappie and perch are the two fish I will put a knife to.

My next perch encounter came the following December. I wasn’t perch fishing. I was going after the biggest largemouth in the lake. I had my proven 1/4-oz. black jig with a blue plastic pork rind trailer, and I was fishing drop-offs in deep water. No luck for me that day. I had about two hours left from the time I said I would be home and remembered another angler who told me there was a brushpile underneath a buoy close to the river’s edge. I decide to finish the day trying to catch a few crappie.

I moved to that place next to the buoy and began dropping jigs down vertically and dancing them above that brushpile. The jig I had on was a 1/16-oz. with a red and white tube. The white color was on the back half of the tube. Once again, my mind is focusing on crappie, and it did not take long before I got my first hit. I am reeling up what feels like a healthy panfish, but it wasn’t a crappie.

“Perch,” I said to myself, “Hmm.”

This one was a healthy fish that had more girth than what I had seen on my trip with my boy, so I decided I might as well target them.

I then presented my jig closer to the bottom, and boom, another one. This one was close to the same size, and both of them went in my livewell. I didn’t realize it until later, but I was not directly over the brushpile but fishing next to it. The fish were in about 14 feet of water on a flat, and I was probably 100 feet from a steep drop-off where the submerged Chattahoochee runs.

I spent the next hour and a half catching many perch. Just as before, there were some small ones, but this location was yielding a better number of bigger, keeper fish (or jumbos as they say up North).

As I was getting ready to leave, my boat drifted closer to the buoy, and that is when I had a hit as my lure was falling. This time it was not a perch but a very healthy crappie about 12 inches in length that went in the livewell. I also realized it was time to go and really didn’t think much about the crappie that was found above the perch.

A few days later, I went back out bass fishing. No hits in the first hour, so I went after yellow perch again. This time the red and white was not producing anything, so I switched to a white-and-chartreuse triple tail grub, and it was just what the fish wanted. I had three keeper perch in the well and then remembered the big crappie I had caught on the last trip. I then started working my jig about 10 to 12 feet deep versus the 14-foot depth near the bottom where I was catching perch. I was also trying to get closer to the brushpile, and sure enough, I caught a healthy crappie about 13 inches long.

I began to think, “Could both species be holding close to each other?” Obviously, there was forage there for both. So, I finished out that day alternating depths and pulling in both species.

Those experiences had my mind wanting to explore the perch more to learn their habits, patterns and spawning movements.

I love YouTube, especially the videos that use underwater cameras. I began to watch some perch vids, and right away, I noticed one thing I already knew. Perch like to hold tight to the bottom. One video was showing an ice fishing lure, and it was danced directly above them, then dropped a little lower into their strike zone. The perch would always bite and hold the bait, then turn it to ingest. Another thing I noticed were crappie passing by above them multiple times and sometimes in big numbers. Hmmm? Do they have similar patterns? Do they like the same kind of habitats and structures? The answer is YES! They often school together but once they find structure, the perch will always settle in closer to the bottom and the crappie tend to suspend above them in varying depths.

Another difference is during pre-spawn when the perch will head up the tributaries earlier than the crappie. Perch will spawn in temperatures starting around 45 degrees and are usually done by the time the water is 58 degrees. Crappie spawn in the 56 to 64 temperatures. That means there are time frames when both fish are sharing the same spawning grounds. Once the spawn is over, they often follow the same patterns together throughout the year.

Now let’s go back in our story a little bit. Remember I said I had some friends who had put me on some perch before? I had met these gentlemen when I was a manager at one of those big box outdoor stores. That trip was an ice fishing trip, and this group of guys were no novices. They told me that perch are aggressive winter feeders, and that it is the only time of year they go after them. We sat in an ice shack with cold beverages on the floor (no need for a cooler, just put your drink on the ice). There was a generator providing heat and a satellite that provided a TV for us to watch a college football bowl game. It was fun, and we caught many, many perch that day.

I share that story because now on my West Point trips, I target perch during cold-water periods, using those same ice fishing methods with a vertical presentation.

That’s my transformation from a wintertime bass angler into a perch angler (so I thought). My first perch encounter was in 2018, but in 2021, I would find them again in a different location.

I always try to get down below West Point dam once or twice around Christmas time to target shoal bass. I also love to hit the lower Chattahoochee in the heat of summer, and there are four different boat ramps I may use, but my methods are always the same. I am on the water before the sun comes up, then I take my kayak and paddle toward the shoals that are upstream.

Before I start paddling, I throw out a 4-inch shallow-diving Rapala X-Rap. Once I start moving, it trails behind me in a trolling mode. I usually get a striper or hybrid using that method, but as soon as I reach the shoals, I reel in the X-Rap, and I focus on shoal bass. After fishing the shoals, I will drift back downstream and toss a 1/8-oz. Rooster Tail tipped with a crappie bite and target blowdowns. Those blowdowns can produce any species and sure enough one of those trips yielded some perch. Some big fat ones were holding where there was an eddy or slack water on the back side of those blowdowns. It is always a bonus to bring some home, and I now take a cooler with me on those trips, and if I do get some perch, they go on ice as soon as possible in the summer heat.

So those have been my experiences with perch on West Point Lake and below the dam.

I will close this article out by sharing some lessons learned, but I want you to be certain that I am not writing as a perch expert but instead an angler who has enjoyed pursuing them.

Lesson No. 1: Think crappie. These two fish have very similar behaviors as the months pass.

With the exception of prespawn and depth, perch spawn earlier, but once the spawn is over, both species are often near each other with the perch always holding closer to the bottom. So wherever and whenever you have caught crappie on West Point, try deeper for some perch.

Lesson No. 2: Lures. The perch doesn’t begin eating minnows until they are at least 6 inches long. Anything under 6 inches are ingesting tiny aquatic organisms. A minnow imitator will produce the bigger ones. Basically, any lure that you have used for crappie will produce perch, but be prepared. They can be picky about color.

Lesson No. 3: Live bait. These can be similar to crappie presentations (closer to the bottom), but if those methods are not producing, try and hook your minnow through both lips from the bottom up on a smaller hook. Place a 1/16- to 1/8-oz. split-shot about 8 inches in front of the hook and let it settle to the bottom. About every 10 seconds, lift your rod tip about a foot, then drop it toward the bottom. Often times, they will hit it on the drop. Once again, I prefer vertical, but you can cast this presentation and retrieve using the same lift-and-settle method.

Lesson No. 4:. The hook-set. This one is tough and takes some discipline, but understanding how a perch eats will increase your odds at hook-sets. Remember, a perch has to swallow its prey whole, so there will be a first hit when they grab, then they will turn their catch to ingest. Initial hook-set at first feel usually equals a miss. It’s better to hesitate, and I like to drop my rod tip down to create no resistance. Let them have the bait, and then set the hook.

Watch some of those YouTube videos to get a clearer mindset on their eating behaviors. Also, crappie anglers, if your bobber is shaking for a bit, then slowly goes down, you are probably on perch. Give that a little time before you set the hook. You might be surprised.

I like to use a 6-foot IM8 graphite rod with my vertical presentation, and I use 6-lb. test monofilament. Four pounds would be more sensitive and productive. I just can’t go that small in case something larger hits my jig. I would want to have a chance to land it.

Each of us have our own preferences when it comes to rod length and line size, but I encourage you to try the vertical presentation. Once you find a school, it seems to be more productive than casting at them.

Perch are probably the most overlooked fish in our state. So, the next time you are fishing West Point, remember, there are perch in there. And to all other Georgia anglers, check to see if perch are listed in your favorite lake. If you catch and eat one, you may be hooked like I am.

One last thing. I have added some new tackle to my largemouth lure inventory. With the new knowledge of a healthy perch population, and the knowledge that bass love to eat perch. Next time I go fishing in cold-water conditions, I am going try a slip bobber directly over the top of where I think the perch are holding. With one eye on my bobber, I will be pitching perch-imitating lures on the edges for a big bucketmouth.

Be safe, God bless and good fishing to you!