Spring perch run

[williamf...@gmail.com]

Does anyone have experience fly fishing the perch run up the tidal creeks ? I think this is supposed start soon on eastern shore and was wondering if they can be caught on the fly and what flies and methods would work.

I’m looking forward to shad run but getting a few perch to eat would be fun too.

[Misha Gill]

I am attempting to figure out the Yellow Perch run this year after meeting Shawn Kimbro and reading his book Chesapeake Panfish. I've tried twice so far this year, unsuccessfully, but with the warm weather I think this is the week that it turns on. There is a tactic called "float and fly" where you put a shad dart (essentially) 2-4 feet below a bobber on a spinning rod and work it back to you with short twitches to give the fly a jigging motion. Fly fishing for them is tough just because the shore fishing is in pretty wooded areas, but there's no reason it wouldn't work - I bet a woolly bugger would slay em too. A lot of the people who fish for them use live minnows too. Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting a few to eat as well, they're supposed to be delicious.

[Gregg DiSalvo]

I catch a bunch in the finger lakes in NY.  I used to always use bright, green, yellow, orange grub plastics, any mepps or panther martin,  and rebel crayfish with great success.  Mostly summer perch, so they were always hooked on the fast retrieve.  Never spent any time chasing jack perch, but slower does seem to make sense.  I've also caught a number on Snowhite damsels and big chartreuse zebra midges below a hopper.  Have caught them at the gravely outflow on clousers while swinging for striper.   

[Aden]

Yellow perch remind me of crappie fishing. Hard to find but once you catch one the rest are in the same spot. I usually get into them the first week of December by Mt. Vernon just off the main channel on the mud flat by the lilly pads. A small olive and white clouser size 8 slowly stripped on a floating line does the trick.

[williamf...@gmail.com]

Thanks for help on this! I’ve read about the bobber and shad dart method. I’ll try wholly buggers and perhaps shad flies and see what happens.

Bill