April Perch On Lake Simcoe

I watched Taro's recent video with great envy, however that was almost a month ago. I have been planning a trip to Lake Simcoe in the Virginia Beach are next week, April 10th and 11th, for some spring perch fishing but with the early ice out I'm somewhat concerned that the early good perch fishing might have passed. I have a 2hour and 45 min drive and I'm not sure I want to drive all that way if I have missed the prime fishing period. Any information regarding this would be greatly appreciated along with any tips on depths or location etc would be very helpful if there is still good fishing to be had. Thanks in advance.

im going to port bolster on monday april 08 on my birthday ill post my results

Thanks Allister I'll look for your message.

The Perch spawn is not done.
They are no where ready yet.
You have not missed a thing.
All the perch we caught yesterday were still tight egg sacks.
Go and have fun with everybody else.

Fished Simcoe yesterday and you have not missed a thing. Fishn just going to get better.

Happy Fishing !!

Well said , sir

PS. And don't worry about Taro's video too much. Its not from this year

Went out Monday April 8th, all I can say is you’ve definitely not missed prime time. The bite was on fire, every fish was over 10 inches, biggest of the day was 14.5” which was released for the gene pool, the action was non stop. If you have livescope I would suggest using forward imaging to snipe them from 50 feet away, I found the small schools of really large fish would spook if I got closer than 35 feet away, it was crucial to cast at them from a distance. It took some time to find them but the livescope definitely helped a ton in tracking their movements. I was catching them in 25-26 FOW but heard others found luck in 4-6FOW, water temp where I was fishing was 40-41 degrees, definitely still early in terms of spawning. Here is a pic of the haul, 1L water bottle placed for comparison. YouTube video coming soon! Good luck

WOW. That is a busy day of fishing. I do the same thing with crappie. Much better to stay as far back from the school as possible and draw the fish out from the rest, if possible. I don't use any technology (sonar) If the birds are not there to spot the fish for me, it takes a while to find them sometimes.

Congratulations! good info here.

Everyone is correct who previously said it’s not done. It’s not even close to done.
Perch are still pre spawn.
Even when they start spawning the spawn lasts for quite a long time. They do not all spawn at once. I have seen the spawn last for a month. I have caught spawner out perch then 4 weeks later caught perch that had not spawned yet.
Once is starts it’s still not over. Post spawn perch feed like crazy. You catch those big LONG fish that taste just the same without big bloated bellies of eggs.

i went out on simcoe yesterday launched at pefferlaw river it was a little breezy in morning cool wind but not too roughhad to wear winter clothes but it warmed up later the wind dyed down drove out where the boats were and started drifting with a drop shot an minnow we landed a couple of nice ones but we were drifting too fast so we dropped anchor i was using a drop shot with a minnow i got one jumbo and a bunch of smaller ones my friend was using a green jig with a rubber minnow an he was killing them he landen 20 keepers half of them were jumbos my other friend was using a drop shot with minnows and he got 16 nice keepers most were jumbos i think the difference was they were using 4 lb test leaders an i didnt so they were getting more bites than i did i have a 14 ft lund with a 15 hp 4 stroke honda handels the water good

I was using 15lb fluorocarbon when I caught those fish, I was lazy and didnt feel like switching my leaders, but it obviously did not bother the fish I was encountering!

Its crazy, at one point i was following a school of probably around 15 monster perch. That school had me moving in circles constantly keeping their distance between me and them. Thats when i stopped moving and so did they, i pitched my jig from 50ft away and got hit as soon as i hit bottom, all the fish in that school were 12+ inches. Seems the small ones dont mind the boats as much as the real jumbos. Finding those smaller isolated schools really pays off, but again i dont know how someone without livescope could possibly be able to track these fish and stay on them.

Thank you!

Thanks for the report Informative Angling.

Congrats on the nice catch and for releasing the 14.5 incher for the gene pool. Smaller perch make the best eating in my opinion. Very enjoyable day on the water.