
With the snow crunching beneath our feet, beards and eyebrows icing up with every breath, we were trekking across what felt like a frozen wasteland. Our goal was a small feed of perch and perhaps a football to catch and release, and knowing what lurked below the three plus feet of ice and snow was motivation enough to keep pushing on.
With the sun breaking the horizon and temperatures below -30 (which has been the case for most of this season so far), heat and shelter were the priority. We set up shop not far from where I had fished days earlier, a good number of perch were caught that day with the biggest being fifteen inches, about ten or so pike were caught as well, some hooked so badly they had to be retained making for a good meal. That success was why I was back. Not many people look at perch as a trophy fish but I truly do, as well as the two anglers I was with this day.

As is usually the case at this lake I needed to miss more than a few bites before my first solid hook up. A thick red mark showed up at six feet on the flasher and I raised my lure just above it, wham came the tell tale strike of a pike. The other two anglers reeled up their lines quickly as to avoid tangles and snags beneath us, it's common with the peeling runs of these 24 - 32 inchers on ultra lite or lite tackle to go where they want at first. After an enjoyable battle I finally forced the pike up the hole where we were able to get the hook out and send it back on its way.


The thing that made this lake rare is that the perch community had a long time to develop before they were noticed - including by Fisheries Branch. Given the abundant food source and large predators, some individuals in this population are larger than what is achieved in some lakes. The word got out a few years back on the good numbers and huge sizes and it's been getting hit hard, with 9 out of 10 "trophy" sized perch caught being retained to eat by anyone lucky enough to catch one. Not us though, anything above twelve inches and usually below nine gets sent back, and if anyone does want to keep some, it's nowhere near the limit of 25 in our southern region.
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