Where did they go

Past Sunday I got invited by a pair of friends to join them for Pearch fishing near Virginia beach, I got their around 11 am. They had allready filled the boat/scanoe. So I hoped in to what seemed like a tiny floating death trap with a 4hp motor putted out about 100 yards and started catching jumbo Pearch one after the other for a few hours. Started raining and called it a day.
Fast forward 4 days. Today I decided to take my 22 footer out the same spot with a nice bucket full of minnows invited my Brother-in-law and between 2 of us we managed to catch 2 Pearch. Every other boat we talked to got scunked.
I don’t get it on Sunday most of the fish were still full of eggs. Today all gone.
On Sunday we were getting them in 5 feet of water, today we tried just about every debth. 5/10/13/15/20/30. Nothing all gone. Just how far can they move in 4 days ?

It happens a lot...I feel your pain.
it's called fishing not catching...lol.

I have to figure out the migration pattern

Author, that's a good question.

Here's what I've found

https://www.gameandfishmag.com/editorial/fi..._0606_05/245243.

I'm going to try Cooks Bay today, if they are looking for warm water my guess is Cooks bay could be a a winner.

Gotta love fishing.

Happy Catching!

I guess those fish do know how to swim:-)

I am thinking that they were spawned out and and went either direction around Georgina island out to 30+ deep
However there was thousands and Thousands of them under the Docks at Virginia beach Marina ,, most small but quite a few large ones.

happens all the time. Last spring I did a scout of where to take a fellow member. Caught 8 walleye in a spot I like to fish. Next day fellow site member makes the drive from other side of TO gets there at the same time as me the day before. We fish for 4 hours and never get a hit.

Big lake, lots of places to hide. I truly think Mother Nature is a comedian, and makes us look foolish, when we think we have it all figured out.

We got them in 20-21 FOW in Port Bolster area on Wednesday

it was very windy with South wind blowing pretty hard and the perch was spread out in the water column as visibility was reduced so we had to fish higher in the water column with drop shot hooks spread out up to 4-5 feet of bottom.

The bite was light but we managed to take home a couple dozen good sized keepers,

Lots of large female perch still full of eggs.

Good luck on your next outing.

Just want to add my 2 cents.

The fishing for perch right now is a hit and miss as some of the fish is spawning, some had already spawned recently and some are still in pre-spawn as temperature varies across the various parts of the lake. That's why people find them at different depth now.
Also the weather is a key factor right now so try to pick a low wind and sunny day if you can .
My advice would be not Cooks Bay but colder areas of Simcoe where the ice melted last this year: Snake island and East side (Beaverton, Port Bolster) as more fish appear to be in pre-spawn there and more willing to bite.

When it comes to perch especially deeper than 10 feet I won’t wet a line until I mark some schools on the electronics. Sometimes it may take some driving around but doesn’t take long to get a spring feed of perch on simcoe once you find them.

perch move and move fast when they want to.........weather/water temperature and whether they have spawned or not all come into play

i think we have all have had this happen

For sure. I use to pre-fish an area ice fishing to make sure the bite was good before taking some newbies since they are not going to want to run-and-gun until we find fish. I have had those days where just the day before, I think I have found them and so the newbies will have easy pickin's and only to end up on fishing day to be very slow....I mean, I always still catch some fish just to make sure they know they are there but the newbies end up pretty skunked...maybe a couple of small perch each and that's it. That's when I have to tell them, "you should have been here yesterday" (and make sure I have at least a photo for proof )
Other times, the pre-fishing pays off and the newbies hit it big, which is great to see them have fun but sometimes, they lose the appreciation for the hot bite (if they don't really know how slow it can get) and expect fishing is like that all the time.

I am with James on this one. I think he has found the root cause!

One more week and we could have the same question about Whitefish..................Where did they go???......