As temperatures begin to plummet and anglers start thinking about winter fishing options, we're reminded once again that there's no such thing as the end of the fishing season. Any Chesapeake dweller should know, the fishing season never ends around here—it merely changes. If you’re willing to bundle up and brave the cold you have plenty of options for casting and catching. And one that often gets overlooked is the late early winter white perch bite. White perch are one of the most prolific fish in the Bay, and you can catch them from all the way north in the Elk River clear down south to the Elizabeth. True, their numbers have been lagging in recent seasons in many areas. Yes, they’ve had poor spawns similar to rockfish performance the past few springs. But there are still zillions and zillions of white perch out there and when the water grows cold they school up tight, which means you can enjoy red-hot action.
Finding Winter White Perch
The white perch migration is a fairly simple one to wrap your head around. In the summer they spread out in tributaries, creeks, and over oyster bars and shoals. As temperatures drop out they move to deeper waters around structure and edges and school up tight. And in the spring they run up the tribs to spawn before scattering out again. As the holidays grow close expect them to be packing together and heading for holes and channels of 20-plus feet of water, sometimes depths triple that, especially where there’s good structure.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is an excellent example of a reliable winter white perch hotspot. In the summer you might find perch here at just about any piling in just about any depth but by the time water temperatures drop into the low 50s you’ll usually discover that the perch have balled up in 30’ to 50’. The sheer drop-offs and edges around the rockpiles are commonly a great place to find them. Similarly, deepwater bridge pilings on the lower tributaries, like the Route 4 bridge on the Patuxent, the 301 bridge on the Potomac, the Route 3 bridge on the Rappahannock, etc., are all good bets when the water temps are in the 50s down to the mid-40s. Once the bottom drops out on the thermometer and it goes into the lower 40s the bite becomes much tougher, but you can usually still tempt the fish into giving you a nibble or two.
Deep drop-offs and open water holes can hold winter perch, too, especially if bait and other predators are around. In fact, it’s not uncommon to pick up perch when jigging deep for late season rockfish if your spoon is small enough. When you see fish on the meter on bottom in 30’ to 50’ of water along a channel edge in the open Bay and the stripers aren’t biting, try dropping down a smaller offering and you might be surprised with the results. Which brings us to…
Getting Winter White Perch Biting
There are a number of offerings that will get winter whites chomping. Old timers will likely drop a top-and-bottom rig baited with bloodworm bits or small minnow. Some anglers will rig up a tandem rig with relatively large jigheads (to reach down deep) and relatively small plastics. But the tactic that’s proved most effective for me over the years is to tie on a relatively compact one-ounce fast-sinking jigging spoon on 15-pound test, with a three-inch bare dropper hook about three feet up the leader.
The spoon does most of the work when it comes to getting down deep and staying there, and is often very productive. The dropper hook lets you experiment by adding on a 2.0” to 2.5” plastic, a piece of bloodworm, or a small bull minnow. If you aren’t getting strikes, switch the color, flavor, and/or profile of the offering on the dropper until you figure out what the fish want. White, red/white, blue/white, purple, and chartreuse are good options to try, and sometimes switching between tube jigs and twister tails makes all the difference in the world.
Drop the rig all the way down to the bottom, reel in slack until your rod tip is near the water level, and start jigging with long sweeps of the rod; slowly at first but if that doesn’t work pick up the pace. Every so often stop jigging and hover the rig a few feet off bottom for a second or two. Keep changing up the presentation until you get a few strikes and figure out what the fish want.
We’re all looking forward to unwrapping those presents in a warm, cozy living room… and the chilly breeze and falling snowflakes make it a lot tougher to get motivated, bundle up, and head out the door. But people, there are still fish to be caught. And as the other bites thin out winter white perch will fill the gap—if you remind yourself that in Bay country, the fishing season never really ends.