Bloodworms

[!wall-i-king]

Hey guys I am going to be up in a couple days and got to wondering if the perch are keying in on bloodworms(spitting them up) or if they are relating to some other form of forage. Also when they are keying in on the midge larva what do you find is the best presentation to imitate them? I was thinking that a red shrimpo or ratso might be the best thing but I am just curious to see what you all think.

[gorrilla]

when they were barfing up midge or mayfly looking larvae:

we caught them on small genz worms and waxies

last year when many I caught were barfing up tons of bloodworms:

we caught them on genz worms and waxies...

I've don't use my shrimpos and ratsos because they are almost too light and without weighting them they take too long to drop to the depths. The Genz worms drop quick so you can get back down to the active school on the camera before they streak(hopefully). One thing thats helped my success is to tempt the perch by just head hooking the wax worm so it dangles horizontally behind the jig. Then WHAMMO...

Its also not a bad idea when using such small baits to have something bigger down there for eye candy to lure the active roaming schools over under your house ie: crappie minnows back hooked on a small spoon, fish shaped camera, spearing decoys periodically tugged, etc. Just remember, keep mobile and drill holes until you locate schools of perch, then I like to plop down with my camera and finesse them into the bucket...

[!wall-i-king]

another idea that you can use to counter the weight issue is to use a dropper rig with about a 12" leader running from the bottom of the spoon to the hook or by using a couple of little bb split shot about a foot above the jig. It will ad weight and in the case of the spoon attraction. Also the little split shot won't spook them. So just keep that in mind the next time the perch get really finicky and you have to downsize even more

[SeaMcnasty23]

I'm not completely sure if I am thinking of the same thing as you guys but I believe the small pale white larva that these perch re-digest are called helabites or something like this. If I understand correctly these hatch when exposed to sunlight through the ice. We found lots of these earlier in the year in our usual late season spots due to the lack of snow cover on the ice and jumbo perch action followed. When we find perch that are digesting half eaten dead larva we drill holes in the similar area until we find some that are still alive after being reeled up spit out and normally when you find this the heavy action follows. I’m not a biologist by any means but have heard this from very reliable fishing partners that fish perch all year round. Try deep water out in the basin.

Quick question. I was wondering what the snow depth off the roads on the east side was after a couple days of fifty degree weather? Was going to come up early this week and was hoping I wouldn't have to bring the sled but well have to see I guess.

[fisherdog19]

I'm almost positive that blood worms are about as big around as a needle, and about 3/4's of an inch long. In a fishes stomach, a pile a blood worms look like a ball of mud and if a fish were to regurgitate them, it would look like mud and you would have a hard time seperating them to see individual blood worms. They also can be clear, white, red, green, rust, etc. Just some info on the blood worm (midge larvae) as they are a favorite food of the crappie's I love to chase.