Where are the keeper Perch?

[J. Rentch]

Fished the lower part of Weems Creek this morning. Caught a lot of perch under 6". Where are the keepers?

[groundhog]

Rip rap, left side of Poplar Island. From the Lowes Warf meet and Greet.

[Cowpokey]

When I looked at the title of this thread the first time I thought it said "What are keeper perch".

Yeah, fish shorelines....especially if there's something special along it; rip rap is good.

[Noahtom]

I went to st. Leonard's creek this morning and caught a lot of 8-9 inch perch and 12 over 10 inches all on shoreline and some open water lots of small fish mixed in though

[bignose]

In the past two week I have fished Weems Creek, Cockey Creek on the Magothy, and Martins Creek near Cantlers.
I have caught a fairly good number of White Perch, but only one over 8". Slim pickings, indeed.
I did catch one Yellow Perch that was over 12" long.

Today: Martins Creek, again, and the fish were definitely in a "under the dock in the shade" pattern. The water was turbid with about 1 foot of visibility.

[Mark]

There were some big ones near Poplar Island at last week's Meet & Greet.

The largest one I've caught locally was 11 inches in Mill Creek.

[medicyaker]

DaddyG and I got into a few nice perch yesterday afternoon around the bulkheads at Ft McHenry in the inner harbor area. We launched in Canton at a little park on Boston St. I got a nice 19 1/2" Striper on an ultralight and a mepps roostertail spinnerbait that is meant for perch sold exclusively at anglers. DaddyG was slayin the WP on an ice fishing jig. He had many perch over 11" i think. Good fishing spot but a nice peddle across the harbor ... going back for more someday. Hopefully DaddyG will post the pics.

[Jaspratt]

I was in the severn yaking with some buds of mine and we ended up keeping 20 perch 9-11.5

[yakPHISHn]

I am on the eastern shore and we crushed 10"er the last two nights(530-dark) in Eastern Bay between the Wye and Greenwood Creek. Perch were big enough to go after my 3/8 jig with 5 inch paddle tails. Private Launch but there is a launch on the Wye at Bennett Point if you have peddles. A lot of 17-19 rocks too, but most are just under limit by fractions. I even caught a blue fish and lost a plastic to another. Area is under fished because boats are scared because charts read shallower than it really is around the point. Fish were in 4-10 feet of water. Also had a buddy catch a lot of 9+ in the Severn all this week.

[whisky]

I fished Weems creek this am for 2 1/2 hours and caught 25 perch ,a couple in the 10" range,one 12 1/2" ,two 11" and rest small. They were all caught on BIGNOSE spinners mostly on drop offs.
Last week fished for 3 hours in am and caught over 50 perch,mostly small,but few in the 10-12" range. Also had two pickerel 19" and 21" all on the same white spinner .


Larry

[Yak Fish]

I was in Canton today and took a stroll by the waterfront, right by the water taxi. There were some people set up catching white perch after white perch...although they were pretty tiny. They kept every one of 'em. There was rip rap there as well. Perch like to hang out there because rip rap holds grass shrimp, which they find irresistible. It happened to be what these people were fishing with. They bought them, but with a net you can just bang the rip rap and collect the grass shrimp.

You can work your way up. Catch the grass shrimp, to catch a small perch, to catch a rockfish

[Fishinfool]

Targeting larger perch is more about bait size than location. The grandaddys I've caught have either been on a rattletrap or a quarter ounce or less jig with a 4" Gulp curly tail either trolled or cast along shorelines. This year it seems the smallies are mostly under the piers, easy to catch with grass shrimp or bloodworm on the bottom, but few keepers.

I am still working on getting larger and fresh minnows to use to bottom fish with. I set the trap again off a pier with bread and cheese where I launch, left it for 20-30 minutes and still nothing.

I've also found that fresh (not frozen) peeler is probably the best bait for larger perch and even rockfish when bottom fished, but difficult to find. A half a decent size claw on a plain hook with a red bead keeps the kiddie perch away, but the big boys can handle it.

[Memory Maker]

I use to load up on perch off of the rocks around Ft Mchenry by casting small sassy shads up against the rocks. Just bounce it off of a rock reel about 2 ft real fast then let it drop to the count of 1 then reel medium to slow ......... Usually get perch on the drop ......... Would load up on perch 8 to 11 inch ........ Had 1 over 12. Use to filet and make fish roll ups with crabmeat and American cheese .........YUM !!!!?!?

[dhawk]

I been doing well in stoney creek this year on perch it seems like the only thing in the creek right now but I found a few pockets with some fish up to 12.5. My goal this year was to put a citation Wp in the yak from my home creek has gotten me so so close.