Small Schoolie Stripers in Perris Lake
Hello everyone.
It's been a while since I have posted any reports, but I had a very unusual (but perhaps not in the future) catch two days ago.
I was planning to go to Silverwood Lake but it got too late with all my errands, so I headed to nearby Perris Lake and arrived at Sail Cove around 3:40 pm.
It was very windy and chilly, and the last people had just left the little fishing pier. They told me that bass (largemouth presumably) had been biting there earlier in the 12 inch range.
The water is lower than ever now, which is a good sign that people are working on the dam and the lake will subsequently be raised. The first wide spot in the pier was at the edge of the water sitting on the sand. The water last week was the murkiest ever at Perris, only about 6 inches or so visibility and very green. This Friday, visibility had increased to a foot or so.
Within a half hour, I had a good bite and caught a LMB of about 12 inches on a redworm, which I quickly released. This was already better than last week, because I was skunked then with nothing more than maybe a couple of nibbles, although I witnessed some people catching bass on plastics. (I was using worms.)
Anyway, around 5:30, I decided to try a microjig under a bobber. Nothing bit on it, so I put a piece of nightcrawler on it and casted out. As I worked it toward me, I had a good bite and hooked an active fish. I didn't know what it was, but when I saw a slash of silver in the murky water, I thought it was a trout. To my great surprise, when I got the fish up again, it was a small schoolie striped bass. I put it in my cooler, put another nightcrawler piece on my jig and cast out again. I immediately caught another one. After a bit of a lull, I caught two more stripers that were somewhat larger, back to back again. The last one was a bit after 6 p.m. After that, I didn't even have another bite, but I was very happy with my unusual catch. I would have taken photos there to prove that I was at Perris Lake, but I didn't have a camera with me. I stopped fishing around 7:15 p.m. and headed back home.
Anyway, I brought them home and took a few photos in the sink. The two largest were 11 inches, and the smallest was about 9 1/2 inches, which is still bigger than most of the ones I catch at Silverwood from the docks. LOL
Clearly, these fish have spawned at Perris Lake and are in the process of establishing themselves, so expect more for better or worse there. it might be bad news for the trout and other fish in the lake, but there is another species to catch there.
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Originally Posted by HuskerRod
