perch in ponds

[jerryj]

i recently started to fish a new pond in sw iowa which come to find out has some nice sized perch in it. i got lucky once and caught a 14 incher out of this pond and not a one since... anybody have any advice on how to catch some more?

[goodyy7]

Wow....SW IA farm pond perch....you lucky dog! Welp, if I were lucky enough to have a gem like that to fish, I would start by finding the deepest part of it. Perch are typically deeper water fish, especially in the winter, and roam quite a bit. How many acres is the pond? FOr lures, I would start with a dropper rig...either a smaller buckshot rattle spoon in chartreuse, a pilkie, small sweedish pimple, or small jigging rapala with a dropper chain off it....put two waxies on the dropper. Maybe even a small minnow head. If I could mark fish and not get them I would downsize to a more flashy teardrop or tiny forage spoon with waxies on it to tempt them. If this pond has perch in any number, one of these tactics should help find them and catch them. Of course, a good old waxie/teardrop combo is hard to beat for anything. Good luck!

goody

[jr712]

I would add trying minnows to goody's suggestions. 14" perch are meat eaters. I've caught 12" perch with 4-5" chubs.

I would also look for shallow weedbeds. For some reason, in small waters with weedbeds, perch will abandon the depths. Seems especially true in ponds / pits with good numbers of gills and bass.

and given the size of your perch, I suspect the population is very limited. wouldn't get that big with much competition around. Which is what my experiences have been with small water perch. The bigger they are, the fewer the numbers. The exception would be sloughs and marshes that periodically freeze out, have a subsequent good spawn, strong year class that grows fast without competition from other fishes.