Catching perch is a kick, but finding them under the ice and figuring out what they want to eat is the challenge. Knowing what possible perch presentations could work and experimenting with specific baits and lure configurations allow anglers to figure out what perch want to eat. Once that happens, it’s generally all over but the cleaning.

The Best Perch Lure On Earth?

Perch tend to favor specific baits, which could be the bait we think should work, but it also could be the seemingly most illogical looking bait in your box. Picky perch drive anglers crazy, but it’s all part of being a perch chaser—and one of the main reasons they’re so fun to target through the ice.

Twenty some years before I started working for In-Fisherman, I read Editor In Chief Doug Stange’s original articles about the effectiveness of search lures (dropper rigs) for winter perch. He bravely coined them “quite possibly the best perch lure in the world.” Turns out the ol’ boy’s statement stuck.

The nature of perch makes the search lure combo ideal for attracting and triggering strikes, the two most critical considerations when targeting perch. Perch are curious fish, often willing to at least investigate things that may equate into a meal. On the other hand, perch can be fussy, often willing to eat only smaller meals.

Search lures incorporate the attracting qualities of a flash lure or swimming lure with the triggering qualities of a small jig packed with maggots or some other bait. The concept is simple: attract them with larger lures and trigger them to strike the smaller offering.

Nearly all flash and swimming lures suffice as an attractor, though some high-action baits have a tendency to tangle. Straight lures tend to fall quickly back into position and tangle less frequently. And although bent or super-action lures like the Acme Little Cleo or Custom Jigs and Spins’ Slender Spoon tend to create more action and flash, the side-to-side horizontal fall and wobble of these spoons tends to cause the dropper line to tangle with the main line.

Search lures can be made by replacing the treble from a 1/8- to 1/4-ounce straight lure, like a Bay De Noc Swedish Pimple, with a 21⁄2-inch portion of 4-pound mono and a 1/32- or 1/64-ounce jig or a #8 to #12 treble hook. The downside to making your own dropper rig is that a 2- to 4-inch piece of mono or fluorocarbon has little stretch, and stress on a short piece of line caused by a heavy perch can break the line.

Several manufactures now offer search lures and dropper rigs that can be attached to your favorite lure. Nils Master makes several versions of the Hali that are pre-rigged with a small metal chain. One of the best add-on droppers is Nils Master’s series of chain droppers. They’re durable and rarely tangle. Perch don’t mind the chain one iota. In fact, the gold chain allows baits to dangle more freely than a mono dropper, and the chain may actually serve as an attractor. Nils Master now offers replacement chain hooks, dropper chains rigged with small jigs, and different length replacement chains that allow for adding a specific size hook or jig.

Custom Jigs & Spins’ Slip Dropper is an adjustable search lure that features plastic sleeves at the top and bottom of the spoon, which allows for changing the length of the dropper. I’ve seen HT Enterprises’ Hanger Rig produce well on Devils Lake in North Dakota, and Northland Fishing Tackle entered the search lure market this season with their Buck-Shot Rattle Dropper Spoon.

Swimming lures also make great search lures. The advantage of converting a swimming lure, like the Jigging Rapala and the Nils Master Jigger or Jigging Shad, is that the heavier baits (molded from lead) keep your line taunt to detect light bites, and the heavyweight baits also rocket to the bottom, which allows you to get your bait back down quickly before the school of perch moves. The key to converting these two types of swimming lures into perch search baits is to cut off both tail and nose hooks to prevent the dropper from tangling.

I prefer a mono dropper rather than the chain dropper below swimming lures. Mono droppers tend to track below the belly of the baits, where chain droppers have a tendency to swing over the bait and tangle with the main line. Remove the belly treble and replace it with a single 2-inch dropper line with a #8 single hook, or a #8 treble. Loop knots allow the dropper line and hook to swing freely below the bait. Northland’s Super-Glo Dropper single dropper hook (tied with 12-pound mono) or their Sting’r Hook (rigged with a treble) also work well below swimming lures.

Converting Salmo’s Chubby Darter into a search lure is a good choice, particularly for attracting scattered perch because the large bait creates lots of vibration and flash. Worked aggressively, the combo attracts fish from a long distance. Most times I leave the back treble on the bait for a shot at walleyes or pike that move in and strike the bait. But removing both trebles and adding two droppers produced some interesting results last season. It attracted and held the fish below me, and I also caught several doubles.

Drop-Shotting—Drop-shotting through the ice can be extremely productive, though few anglers do it. Getting a perch to rise up forces them to make a decision to eat or not to eat. More times than not, perch that are willing to rise are willing to eat.

Drop-shotting involves placing a weight at the end of the line, with a hook and bait set some distance above. This keeps the bait a set distance from bottom—basically suspending a bait near bottom where perch tend to roam. By placing the weight on bottom, you have full control of the lure’s working depth, which is effective when fish hold some distance above the bottom, and it also works for calling active perch off bottom.

According to Iowa perch angler Eric Naig, “One of the greatest perch tricks around is stirring up the bottom with your bait. For whatever reason, perch can be completely uninterested in your bait, but stirring up the bottom seems to make them active. Drop-shotting is the perfect rig for stirring up the bottom with a weight, while at the same time keeping your bait above the cloud of sediment where perch can see it.”

Again, the unique feature is the placement of the bait above the weight. The length of the tag end of line determines the distance from bait to weight. To make the hook rest horizontally, use a palomar knot. When tying the palomar, insert the tag end of the line through the eye from the hook point side, and form the loop on the bend side. When you tighten the knot, the hook sticks straight out and up, positioning the bait correctly for efficient hooking.

Another option is tying short dropper lines to your main line, which positions your hook or small ice flies a short distance away from your main line. Simply create a loop in the line using an overhand knot, then tie a uni-knot to the loop before tightening the loop knot.

“The main reason I like drop-shotting for winter perch is because they seem to move through at different levels,” Naig says. “Active perch are often off bottom and cautious; neutral or inactive perch tend to hunker on the bottom. In fact, sometimes it seems that small fish are on the bottom and the larger perch are suspended above them. At other times, the big perch are closer to the bottom and the smaller fish are positioned higher.

“Drop-shotting allows for using two baits on the same line, which is ideal for targeting perch moving through at different levels. I generally position one bait close to the bottom and one 2 to 3 feet above the bottom. I tie a tiny jig or ice fly (teardrop) 6 inches from bottom and a jig about 3 feet from bottom. Then I simply tip the hooks with a small minnow, grub, or Berkley Gulp! Grubs or Gulp! Maggots. Berkley’s Gulp! products designed for panfish are outstanding. In most cases, I’m so confident they work just as well if not better than livebait, that I bring only Gulp!”

Drop-shotting through the ice doesn’t require a lot of weight because you’re fishing stationary and vertically. Use at least a 1/4-ounce weight, which not only keeps the line taunt to detect bites, but also allows you to get the bait back down quickly before the school of perch moves.

Most anglers use light low-visibility monofilament lines (4- to 6-pound test) for triggering finicky fish. Naig, for instance, prefers Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon for finesse rigging in deep, clear-water lakes. “I like to use no-stretch Berkley FireLine to detect bites,” he claims. “The no-stretch properties of a superline simply make it easier to detect bites, particularly in deep water. I often tie a long leader or add a swivel to connect FireLine to the fluorocarbon. One critical variable to using any type of braided or fused line, however, is using it on warmer days or in a heated ice shelter, because the lines absorb water and freeze to your guides and spool.”

School Maintenance

Finding or attracting schools of perch is a challenge. But keeping a school of perch below you can be just as challenging. Perch may hold on specific spots, particularly when schools of baitfish, insect larva, or freshwater shrimp are abundant. But most of the time, perch roam around in schools searching for something to eat. When they find food, they stay and feed; and when the food’s gone, they leave.

Fortunately we’ve learned a few things over the years that help keep schools of perch below us.

Perch are decoyable. I first learned this while dangling a chub on a nearby tip-up in hopes of catching a big pike. Other perch anglers were around, but I was the only one dangling a giant chub. I was the only one who could consistently keep the school of perch under me most of the time; the surrounding anglers were picking only a few perch whenever a school cruised past them.

My beliefs about decoyable perch were further solidified by a trio of perch chasers from my hometown in South Dakota. To this day, the father and two sons remain ice fishing perch fanatics. In North and South Dakota, two states that host some of the best perch fishing in the world, each ice angler is allowed four lines. The father-sons trio almost always fish together and generally use the maximum number of lines, which creates a small school of baitfish and seems to keep a school of perch below them longer.

Eventually, I decided to doctor and weight a few perch-colored Rapala ShadRaps. I added a tailfin much like the tailfin on a Rapala Jigging Rap in hopes of creating the ultimate perch decoy. I drilled two holes fairly close, one for the perch decoy and one for jigging a search lure. It worked. After giving the decoy a few jerks, I attracted a school of perch and started catching them on my search lure.

Since then, Nils Master and Salmo have introduced larger-profile baits—swimming lures designed to catch larger predator fish—that work great for decoying perch.

The key is to use one of your lines exclusively as a decoy line. Simply lower the bait about 3 feet from bottom and deadstick it. I use the largest Chubby Darter or Jigging Shad as decoys, and I tip the belly treble with either a minnow head or a maggot. Or I remove the belly treble and add a dropper line. The larger dangling bait helps keep the school of fish below me, and I’m always surprised by how many bonus perch I catch on the decoy bait.

Discovering that magical bait of the season is the challenge. I don’t know of any other fish that responds more positively to a variety of presentations yet tends to favor one particular presentation. Nor do I know of a fish that can respond negatively to the same presentation that produced hundreds of the same species the previous season. Keep an open mind and a tackle box full of options and possibilities. You may even want to consider decoying perch to keep the school below. Do whatever it takes to teach schools of perch their daily lesson.