Perch fillets are tasty—maybe the tastiest—but harvesting them isn’t the only reason they’re popular. Like all angling, locating and catching perch is a challenge and having success is the reward. There’s always a chance you’ll find a mother lode of suicidal biters that eat as fast as you feed them—a high-action event that gets tattooed on your memory for life. And catching a monster perch, one that stretches 13 to 15 inches, often kindles an angler’s infatuation, then addiction, to wintertime perch action.

The more you know about perch, the easier it is to find and catch them. A few generalizations apply. But most things we know about their wintering locations and behaviors vary daily from lake to lake and season to season.

Likely Locations—Many different location patterns may exist at the same time in the same body of water. Deeper lakes usually offer structural elements like points and humps sticking into deep basins. Perch also congregate near primary structure and bottom-changing breaks, such as areas where sand meets mud. Subtle rises on a flat (1 to 2 feet) can be enough of a transition to attract perch. Humps or ridges that rise from a deep flat provide edges that may hold schools of perch. The bases of islands, reefs and mudflats offer edges that provide logical starting points.

In shallow, dishpan-shaped lakes with very little structure, perch must roam to find food. A few key areas, however, can attract baitfish and perch. The shoreline is a structural edge perch use to trap baitfish and to search for other aquatic life. Ice heaves or “pushes” provide vertical edges under the ice that also attract fish. Years when the ice freezes clear, milky-colored ice or snow-covered areas deflect your outline and provide a shaded edge for bait and perch. Weededges, current areas, and connecting bays can congregate perch, too.

School Size and Movements—Sometimes perch move in large schools, while other times they cruise around in small packs. School size and how frequently and far they move dictates whether anglers should be mobile in their effort to stay over a school, or wait in one spot to intercept them as they move through the area.

In deeper lakes, school sizes numbering in the hundreds are common. In the Great Lakes, for instance, a single school can number well over a thousand. In shallow, fertile lakes, even though the perch population may be booming, several hundred small schools of 2 to 15 perch may litter the lake, roaming in random directions. However, large schools can develop in relatively small lakes, too.

Perch may stage in one specific area where shrimp, nymphs and larvae are abundant. Other times they roam farther and more frequently, circling back through an area several times daily. They may also move like a wolf pack, constantly herding minnows. Perch are well aware of their own toothy enemies, too. When pike and walleyes are lurking, perch often vanish from the scene until the danger has passed.

Assess perch movements and adjust accordingly. When they’re on the move, it’s often best to stay put and let the fish come to you—don’t, and you may be one hole behind the school all day. Larger schools are prime candidates for mobile tactics. Keep drilling holes until you find them—and when they move, try to travel with them.