Perch Express

[candiru]

I have read some articles about very unreliable Amtrak service in the last few months. It sounds like the Perch Express is not happening right now.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/content/rerouted-amtrak-disrupts-devils-lake-business

[holmsvc]

Here is their latest report. They have stopped using the Amtrak.

Perch Patrol Fishing Report

Monday, February 3, 2014

We would like to send out a Huge Thank You for all the Perch Express customers that we talked to this past week. It wasn't the funnest phone call to make informing everyone that we are abandoning the Amtrak service. But in our heart of hearts, we are doing the right thing. I personally have checked the train status every day and it continues to run 5 to 9 hours late. This would have been disastrous for our Perch Express Packages and we just had to put a stop to it. So again thank you for understanding and a special thank you for those 80 percent of you that chose to keep your reservations and drive here. We did have a few dates open as a result of some of the cancellations and they will be posted below.

What a monster week we had on jumbo perch on Devils Lake! This nearly rivaled our early ice bite we had in mid December! Numerous groups with the Perch Patrol caught their limits of perch. It is so fun, when our perch fishing is this good. To see grown men running around like they are little kids on their way to an amusement park. Fun to be a guide with the Perch Patrol these days!

We are still catching most of our perch on the small 1/16 oz Northland Buckshot Rattle Spoon, Hali's, Clam Outdoors Bomb spoons, all tipped with either minnow heads, perch eyes, or wax worms. One of the keys to our success is finding the larger schools of fish and then it doesn't seem to matter what you have on, they seem to compete for it. One of the coolest moments in ice fishing is when you watch your bait fall through the water column on your vexilar and you see the 3 or 4 foot wave of fish racing up to meet your lure before you reach the 6 foot auto zoom. This doesn't happen every day but when it does, it sure gets your heart pounding.

We haven't fished walleye a whole lot this year, with all success we have had on perch, but we have had some pretty decent catches in the morning hours. We have been fishing break lines along structure in any where from 15 to 30 feet of water. We did fish Northern Pike a couple of days. We had two groups that limited out on perch a couple of days in a row and chose to fish pike on their last day. The results were...limits of 4 to 6 pound northern pike, all caught jigging for them. That can't be done on many lakes in this continent.

Openings that recently opened resulting from train cancellations:

February 9th through February 13

February 17

February 19 and 20

February 24 through February 28

Call the Perch Patrol Hotline (701) 351-HSO or Woodland Resort (701) 662-5996 to check availability or make reservations.

Have a great week Everybody!