Arthur report 10/8

Oh, fish.  Right, there were some fish.  Bunch of perch, sadly no jumbos.  About half 8-9" range and half dinks.  At least they were chewing steadily even if they weren't impressive in size.  Zero cats.  Where all my cats?  Last fall at this time and temp (water was 65-67 degrees) you couldn't keep a bait in the water without a channel cat slamming it.  And speaking of can't keep a bait in the water... WIPERS.  Dozens of the voracious little striped menaces.  Size 4" to 10" and as many as you didn't want to catch.  Good hope for the future of wipers though I guess, but I wish they were out eating alewives instead of my minnows.  
 
Saw one crappie of no particular size flip off at the boat.  Couple sub-foot long largemouth bass... that's about it.  
 
Other than the wind (see previous post) gotta love fall temps.  Mid 60 all day and it kept most of the rookies off the water.  Loved it.  

12-13" isn't a jumbo, that's a walleye.  I say anything over 10" on Arthur and you should be happy, or at least I certainly am.  I'll take anything over 9" really, crappy or perch.  My experience is mostly with scattered perch along the shorelines and weedbeds.  We tend to anchor and fish say a 40' patch, then move as needed throughout the day.  And I haven't noticed them "schooling" by size... I've caught pigs and babies at the same spot, on consecutive minnows.  We actually like the small ones since we use them for bait.  
 
Hard to say if they are overpopulated.  I'd certainly say their numbers are solid.  We caught fish steadily, and as you say that's what it is all about.  I'd trade all of those dink wipers for a real one though.  :)  The spots we were in have never given us a wiper.  Cats galore, panfish certainly, even the occasional northern.  I was surprised to find the alewives back in there really.  Shows you how strong their population is.  

Porktown

python73

I have had experiences where I am catching all 8"ers, then cast in another area, and pull 2-3 10"ers from the same spot.  I am usually fishing small openings in weed beds, so I am not sure how much they school up in those small of areas.  They definitely seem to turn off and on, so maybe it is a school that pulls up and scatters through the weeds?
 

I've only really caught them in good numbers in the weed beds, so I am assuming they school up and scatter throughout the weed pockets to hide from preds. I've came across a few in open water but I've never marked perch schools out in deeper water on Arthur. I'm sure at points they do and maybe other people have came across that but I never have, nor do I really look for them in those areas. 

After the deeper parts of the lake turn, there are a ton of fish deep (near dam) in large schools.  I have no idea how to catch them, or what they are.  But my electronics are flooded with fish.  I've found this at other times of the year.  I rarely catch anything deep, unless on some sort of underwater structure.  Those schools of fish suspending in deep open water don't seem to be easily fooled.  I'd imagine at times, they are perch?
 
I drove over Yough Lake on Sunday.  I assume that is what you are referring to with Shenango.  That was pretty crazy how low that lake was.

PT I've seen those marks before in that area, it's astounding how many fish are present at times. I believe they are shad or other type of bait fish, an underwater camera would be nice on low pool once the water clears up in december. Although, I've also talked to a few guys that jig sonars down that area in the winter and do well on walleye. That is something I am going to try for sure in late fall early winter. 

I had work travel cancel on me yesterday, so asked my dad and father in law if they wanted to take advantage of a nice day and hit the lake.  Started out chasing the byrds, but no love at all.  Gave up and found a perchy looking area to play around in.  The perch came in shifts, which I think must be schools of them pull up on weed beds, or something just triggers them all to wake up at the same time?  They would be on fire for 1/2 hour, then nothing for a while, then on fire again.  This is the first time that I have been able to give it a full day on the water, or close to for the perch bite.  Got on the water around 9:30 and off around 3.  I usually am only able to swing about half of that time.  It definitely showed, in my total catch, which was close to 50 fish and probably just as many misses (half of the catches made it back in the lake - only kept 9"+ or thick and close to).  To go back to the "jumbo" debate.  I had 3 fish over 11" and 6 others over 10", although two were rather slim, no 12"+ this trip.  I was shocked at how little meat was in the thin "jumbos".  I definitely wouldn't consider one of my longest fish a jumbo for how thin it was.  I'll have to remember that and toss those thinner big ones back to thicken up.  When they would turn on, I'd switch from live bait to jigs/flies and pulled them in twice as fast.  Live was definitely the way to go when they weren't on fire.  Mostly minnows, but 1/2 crawlers were getting slammed, tried the mop fly which caught a few, so did a jiggly worm fly and my go to baby gill fly was cleaning up at times too.  A great day on the lake, which took about 2.5 hours to fillet.  

If I would have kept the dinks, I'd still be cleaning...

Hitting it tomorrow.  Early is the plan.  If you see a big blue sea nymph with an angry looking wife on the front chair and a long suffering husband in the back, that's probably me.  
 
Considered Shenango and chasing crappies, but that's 2 hours of fishing time that I'd lose to driving.  Plus an extra hour north the polar bears are probably already prowling.  

Anyone mistakes me for a duck and I'm returning fire.  :)  But maybe I'll put an orange cap on my trees just for grins.