Besides the wonderful trout fishing, I also enjoy fishing for other species. So when me and my family decided to spend our holidays camping at a lake in Bavaria (“Gruentensee”), it was clear that I would try to catch perch with little streamers.
Perch are wonderful fish! They are not only beautiful, they are clever as well and the bigger ones are sturdy fighters… when everything comes together: the right weather, the right fly, the right spot, you can have a lot of fun fishing for these striped warriors of the lakes….
Whenever our ladies allowed us, my friend Kai and me searched for perch. We were on a catch&cook-mission, hoping to catch enough fish for a decent meal in the evening, but it proved tricky! We had not been here before and had no clue of depths and structures, the water was murky and we had hardly any idea where to find the perch, so we rented a boat and explored every little bay of the lake.
We rowed many kilometers, casting here and there, fishing deep and shallow and with all sorts of variations without much success…. but finally on the third day, we discovered a nice spot with a lot of perch in a little bay and from then on, we caught perch after perch! The biggest one was 29cm but we caught many around 26/27cm which were a lot of fun on my 6wt. The key to success was a super slow presentation near the ground, very probably perch are heavily feeding on crayfish here.
