North Kawartha Jumbos, unexpected bycatch

Got up to the cottage today with a friend, our primary target species being whitefish or walleye. Slush was bad and we were on foot which limited our movement. We tried between 30'-65', marking the most in the ~50' range.

First fish top side was a jumbo perch, caught suspended at 20' over 65'.



Couldn't shake them for the rest of the day and ended up going 7/12, most on bottom around 50'. No whitefish or walleye to show for but was a nice surprise to discover a healthy population of jumbos in the lake!

Very nice. Wished there was a good population of jumbos around here...there are perch but I have no idea where to find them on "my" lake Maybe one day with enough time exploring i will also stumble across a decent population of panfish.

Up until today, the largest perch I had caught on the lake was about half the size of the first jumbo I caught (12”). Goes to show there’s always more to learn about a given body of water, no matter how many rod hours you’ve put in.

Completely agree. Wish I could tag along on some of the Ministries' netting surveys....that would be very cool to see what they catch and where. I use to know people but that was a long, long time ago.

I have heard people say there is no good size perch in the Kawarthas. LOL. They are there, but elusive like the monster crappie. You found some, problem solved.

The fillets and perch roe (2 large rock bass I harvested on the left):

Looking like some good eating. Happy new years.

Looks like a great day of fishing and some good eats!

Looks like a fun day Mike with a tasty reward at the end. Perch is one of my top 3 favorite eating fish.

I never knew there were perch till a couple years ago, never seen one that big. Nice work!

Got out for a bit this aft, no takers but a beautiful day albeit quite windy when you don’t have a hut.

Surface conditions look ideal- mark any fish?

The young fellow that had a pop up marked a few and had a couple followers but no bites when I was there. 50’ of water