Best day of perch fishing for 2010! I caught three fish on my first three casts and knew it would be a great day. I had achieved my limit by 5:30 am and helped my buddy Chris get his for the next hour. Keith tagged along for the fun and also brought home a limit.

2 man limit of Lake Michigan Perch

45 jumbo perch, 3 fishermen, less than two hours.

My 15 fish

Zoom Tiny flukes rigged in tandem with heavier jigs (1/8th and 1/16th oz) and shad raps did the damage this morning.

Look who it is!!

I got Mike to briefly fish with me last Friday for some bass. We didn’t catch any, but I was pretty happy to see the guy holding a rod.

And now, for a long winded week of fishing -

Last Saturday I hit the fox with friends Tim and Clark for some wading. The game fish were not present, but sheephead kept our attention for a couple of hours before we decided to call it quits. Tim managed big fish of the day with a really ugly Buffalo.

Tuesday night I hit the lake front with Keith looking for smallies, but only one was to be had by Keith.

Keith and I were targeting feeding smallies off of some deeper rock piles. However, many of the recently caught smallies are bed protectors, so use your best judgement if you chose to go after them. I’ve always wondered if a bass will be reluctant to attack an invading goby after being hooked…

On another lakefront note, the perch have officially arrived. I spent Monday – Wednesday just waiting for Thursday – the day Lake Michigan hit 58 degrees. I got out Thursday morning and got some perching in before work. The action was steady, but not quite on fire. Keith and I took 16 jumbos home. Those perch just love eating plastic!

Saturday was the kickoff of the Illinois Chapter of Salmon Unlimited’s season of fishing. Team Brush & Roll finished 2nd in the 24′ and under division with a limit of Coho and a couple of Lake Trout mixed in.

We worked a program in deeper water for kings, but couldn’t keep them hos of the line!

It was definitely a great time off shore on Lake Michigan. We also had a few visitors stop by for some well needed rest -

This guy was pretty friendly!

The week concluded today with some perch fishing. Wow, was it a scorcher! Well, the weather was warm. Fishing, not so much.

Keith and I fished spot 1 for about 45 mins this morning and plucked off a few fish at first light, but the crowd of anglers grew and the fish disappeared. We decided to relocate to a much quitter and lesser none spot, and we managed to string up 17 nice fish. We then decided that we wanted to hit the daily limit, so we checked out spot #3 and picked up the remainder of our fish and called it a day.

At this point in the week, my camera had stopped working, so Keith snapped a cell phone pic of our stringer from spot 2.

Definitely a fun week, with plenty of fixing in the mix. Perching should really kick off this upcoming week so I expect to spend most of my time on the lakefront