The Muddy Midwinter Perch Pattern Most Ice Anglers Miss

When weeds fade and my fellow ice anglers crowd the humps for walleyes, I find roaming perch by sliding out over deep mud flats.

Midwinter perch can often be found on deep mud flats. Use large spoons to get down quickly and attract fish from a distance. | Joe Shead

I was seemingly in the middle of nowhere, over a deep basin of a large lake in northern Wisconsin. The walleye guys were sitting on humps a few hundred yards away. But I wasn't alone.

I was surrounded by perch. Well, I was within 25 feet of them anyway. They were stacked up underneath me, no doubt rooting around in the mud for their next meal. My flashy spoon tipped with a minnow head proved irresistible to some of them and they clobbered it greedily. The walleye guys could have their humps. I like being out in the middle where it's just me and the perch.

Go to Deep Mud Flats for Midwinter Perch

Go deep for midwinter perch. | 229174309 | Aleksei Filatov | Dreamstime.com

Although early in the winter you'll find perch relating to weedlines, by midwinter, many of them (especially the bigger ones) have scooted out to the depths. I like to begin my search for perch on deep mud flats relatively close to shallow, weedy spawning areas. These flats are often 20 to 30 feet deep. The soft, muddy bottom harbors aquatic invertebrates, such as bloodworms, mayfly larvae and others, all of which provide plenty of protein to fish looking to bulk up to get through the rigors of spawning.

Perch roam these mud flats, rooting up these bugs from the bottom. If you catch a perch from a mud flat, it may harbor visible signs of feeding in the mud, such as a pink nose or belly. Sometimes, a perch’s mouth may be full of these tiny insects when you pull it up.

Perch root around mud bottoms to find aquatic invertebrates like this one removed from a perch's mouth. | Joe Shead

The area where the hard bottom gives way to soft bottom is an excellent starting point. Your flasher can reveal the bottom type. On a hard bottom, you’ll get a longer red return marking the bottom. On softer bottom, the red mark is shorter. Hole hop until you find this transition area and set up. Don’t be afraid to roam this mud flat as well, because that’s exactly what schools of perch are doing. Drill several holes and bounce around until you mark fish, and don't be afraid to come back to them later as the school moves around.

Midwinter Perch Lures

Ice fishing spoons weighing 1/8 or 1/4 ounce get down quickly and help you maintain a tight line in deep water. Plus, they spook away smaller fish. | Joe Shead

Fishing deep mud flats calls for large lures here, such as 1/8- or 1/4-ounce jigging spoons tipped with a fathead minnow head. Spoons get down quickly in deep water, they call in distant perch and their larger size can repel smaller perch from biting. If you pull a perch out of deep water, say about 25 feet or more, its swim bladder may pop out of its mouth, as the fish is unable to quickly adapt to changing water pressure while your reel it upward. These fish won’t be able to swim back down the hole, so plan to keep any perch you catch in deep water, and if you start to catch small ones, move to a different location to find larger fish.

Bang your lure on the bottom to stir up a cloud of mud that mimics a feeding perch. This cloud draws attention, and conveys feeding activity to other fish. If that doesn’t attract fish, raise the spoon several feet off bottom and jig it aggressively for a few seconds to attract fish. Although perch are bottom-oriented, don't be afraid to keep your lure a few feet off bottom where it's more visible. You can always slowly drop down when a fish appears. If you don’t attract fish after a few minutes, move on.

Best Bets When the Bite Gets Tough

Although perch often hit a spoon tipped with a minnow head or waxworms, there are times when perch refuse to bite. At those times, deadsticking – putting a lively minnow on a bare hook and leaving the rod motionless – can coax fish into biting. Scattering a few tip-downs, tip-ups or automatic hook-setters over a school can produce the same results.

Finding Midwinter Perch

Fishing with a partner can help you find and stay on schools of midwinter perch. | Joe Shead

Forward-facing sonar can help you find and stay on top of schools of perch. If you don't have that luxury, however, use your flasher to find fish. Although fish can be anywhere on a mud flat, they may be more concentrated around points or inside turns. Using a tagteam approach with multiple anglers can help you find fish.

Don’t Ignore the Mud

Be prepared to drill lots of holes. Sometimes it takes a little work to find perch over deep mud flats. But if you're on a quality perch lake, they're out there. Although it can be tempting to fish weed edges where you found perch early in the season, often the biggest perch are out in the mud.