Jumbo Perch catches excellent on Lake Simcoe, ON.
Posted on January 8th, 2011[nggallery id=404]I headed back up to the west-side of Lake Simcoe to check-out the ice conditions and see if the larger perch were still in 30-40′ of water. I was joined by my friends Cliff, Stan and Ryan Edenborough. We planned to be fishing by 9:30am, but due to heavy traffic going into Toronto we did not get on the lake until about 11am. We walked out about 1-mile, just north of Cedar Point (north of Lefroy, ON), and started cutting holes. Ice thickness has not changed. It was still about 6″ and there was quite a bit of slush-ice after the main ice which continued to clog our holes while we fished. The perch were still there in good numbers and we all limited-out in about 3-hrs. I was the only one jigging with the Jigging Rapala in the W2 size and I was getting a perch on every drop. At about 2pm, Ryan and I headed out to 69′ of water where the ice was still only 3″ thick. We fished for whitefish, but suprisingly continued to catch good-size jumbo perch. Ryan was fishing a two-way spreader/minnows on the bottom and I decided to jig with a silver spoon. No whitefish, just perch. On this trip my pup Mulligan was out and I was also babysitting my daughter Amanda’s black Labrador retriever Odessa. It was cold, but we all had a good time! If you are heading out for perch, there is plenty of safe ice. If you plan on targeting whitefish and lakers in deeper water I would urge you to use extreme caution and don’t take motorized vehicles out yet.
