EP 66: The Ultimate Spring White Perch Playbook

The spring perch run is lighting up tidal rivers across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, and we’re diving deep into how to find the school fast, pick the right depth, and stack fish on light gear. White perch aren’t a fallback—they’re a high-action, high-reward target with simple rigs, small baits, and a surprisingly technical bite pattern once you understand current and structure.

We start by breaking down white perch behavior in brackish systems and why spring pushes them upriver to spawn. From there, we get tactical: how to read an outside bend, where forage washes off the inside shallows, and why mid-bend seams outproduce flat banks. You’ll learn to stage near salt lines before the push, then slide shallower on sunny days when 3 to 6 feet warms first. Creek mouths, confluences, and bridge eddies get special attention, with tips on casting so your bait or lure tracks into the fish’s face, not past their tails.

Bait hunters get a clear ranking—grass shrimp at the top, bloodworms if budget allows, and fishbites as the cost-saving workhorse that matches catch rates. We cover small minnows, nightcrawlers, and pieces of raw shrimp, plus exact rigging: a light dropper with two small bait-holder hooks, just enough sinker to stay vertical, and a bobber when you need to maintain a precise mid-column drift. Lure fans get a full toolkit too—inline spinners in sizes 0 to 2, micro blades, and 1/32 to 1/16 ounce jigs with 1.5 to 2 inch minnows or grubs—along with small Clouser Minnows and woolly buggers that double as killer teasers.

To help you launch with confidence, we highlight proven waters: the Hudson, Mohawk, and Niagara in New York; Raritan, Mullica, Maurice, and Tuckahoe in New Jersey; Patuxent, Potomac, and Choptank in Maryland; plus the Delaware, Susquehanna, and Schuylkill in Pennsylvania. We close with practical on-water rules: adjust depth every 10 to 15 minutes, move when bites die, match retrieve to temperature, and prioritize cold-water safety—dry suits on kayaks aren’t optional.

If this guide helps you put more fish in the net, follow, share, and leave a quick review. Got a favorite spring perch river or a bait tip that beats bloodworms on cost? Tell us and join the conversation.

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Transcript

Opening & Why Perch Now

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 0:00

Grass shrimp is often going to be the best because it's a very natural bait for this time of the year. It's a small bait. It's going to be moving through the water naturally. So if you have grass shrimp, you can throw it out there and it's going to match the hatch. Hello and welcome to the Fat Dad Fishing Show. My name's Rich Natoli, your regular host, back with a solo show this week. And this is one that's, I guess you could say it's one of those alternative fisheries that we have in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. We're going to talk about white perch, and it's a great time of the year to be out for them. And you know what? I don't understand why more people don't go for them. Uh a lot of people think of it as just a winter fish, and they only fish for them when they can't fish for other things. And I gotta tell you, if that's your tactic, I think you're dead wrong. And if you've never tried for them, I I I think you're missing out. It's a a great fish to be targeting and gonna dive into that tonight, go through some details on how to target them. Spring is a great time to be out on the water for them. Yes, I know there's striped bass swimming around. You may, I don't know, maybe you prefer them, maybe not. Um, but it's worth it's worth going out and giving them a shot because it's a lot of fun. Uh, if it's your first time here, I want to let everyone know, please. If it's the first time checking out the show, either on YouTube or on the podcast, if you enjoy it at all, please follow, like, share. Uh, you know, most importantly, let somebody know uh that you know that might enjoy it as well. That would really help us score the podcast. And with that, we're gonna jump into the sponsors and then jump into the content. It's not gonna be a huge long show today, but just gonna be hitting on some key points for people that really want to get on the water for these fish. All right, we'll start off with our number one sponsor, the top guy, uh Paul Great Bay Outfitters on Radio Road in Tuckerton, New Jersey. I say the same thing all the time, but it's it's worth repeating when we're talking about Great Bay. You will not find a better place to outfit your kayak or to get a new kayak than Great Bay Outfitters. If you have to travel, travel. I'm telling you right now, you want to travel. You can get on-the-water demos of all the new models. He has Old Town, he has native, uh, Crescent, yeah, and he has got a bunch of consignment kayaks as well. So use kayaks. You can also try those out on the water. One of the cool things is if you're thinking about powering a kayak, they do it all. So they'll install everything for you. If you want to put, you know, just electronics, that's fine. If you want to put electronics and, you know, one of these electric motors on there, that's fine. He can do it, they can do it all. So if you want to outfit your kayak the right way, head down to Radio Road in Tuckerton. Tell Paul I said hi. It's been way too long since I've been there. Next one is Quad State Tune. Kevin Driscoll is the guy that you want to reach out to if you have a Toyota truck. So you're talking like the Tundra, the 4Runner, especially the Gen 3 Tacomas that have kind of like a gear hunting issue when you're on the highway where it doesn't quite feel like it's in the right gear. These engine tunes will actually get you in the right gear, get you more torque, get you more horsepower, better gas mileage, better performance overall. If you're hauling a boat, you should probably look into this if you have a Toyota. Also, the Lexus 460 and 470. This also works on there. If you're not sure if you need it, just reach out to Kevin, give him a call and talk to him. He'll walk you through whether or not it's appropriate or not, whether it can solve what you're looking to solve or not. His number is 44-633-5975. And then I'm your last sponsor. I do real estate, folks, southeastern Pennsylvania, primarily residential, some light commercial, but that's not really where I spend most of my time. So if you or somebody you know is looking to buy, sell, or invest in real estate in southeastern Pennsylvania, reach out. I do work at Weikert Realtors Cornerstone, mainly out of Bluebell, Pennsylvania, but also out of Collegeville. You could also say Doylestown, Westchester. I'm all over the place. So reach out to me. My number is in the front of the uh the show for those that are listening on the podcast, 267-270-1145. You can also use that number to text me fish picks. I'm getting a bunch, got one right before a really cool side scan image from Steve. He's in the chat right now from Steven. He he sent it to me. He's been sending me his updates on his white perch this weekend. He did pretty well. He thinks he could have done better, though. So maybe we can go through some stuff today that can help him out. So, with that said, we're going to jump right in. We're going to talk about white perch. And for those of you that are not aware of what it is, this is one of those fish that can exist, kind of like the striped bass. It can be freshwater, it can be salt water, but the difference is they're not going to be out in the open ocean. So they're not going to be in the pure salt for any long period of time. They prefer not to be, I'm pretty sure to kill them, but they will be in the tidal river. So the tidal rivers is where you want to look for them. They are very easy to catch once you find where they are. So for me, when I'm going out and I'm fishing for these white perch, the whole idea is to find the school. If you find the school, you're basically guaranteed to be hooking into multiple fish on that trip and fairly quickly once you find the school. Now it doesn't mean that you can sit on one school all day. They do move, they they do relocate throughout the day. But once you find them, you can be pretty sure that you're going to be on them for a little bit. They are a great eating fish. Now they're small, right? They're smaller than, you know, they're not, you're not pulling out 30 inches, but but man, they are they are really good. It's a really sweet white fillet that's on them. So if you don't mind cleaning a few fish at the end of the day, you're going to have some great fish tacos that night. And it's definitely, definitely worth the time on the water to look for them. What's interesting about it is where you can find them and the tactics that you use for them. And I'm going to go into all of that in detail. Going to talk a little bit about, you know, not just where to find them, but what baits, what lures work. If you're a lure fisherman, if you're a fly fisherman, I'll throw a couple of flies out there. That'll work. Uh, we'll talk about how they move a little bit throughout the seasons because it does vary according to the time of year. And spring just happens to be one of the best times of year for them. And a lot of people miss it because they're focused on striped bass, and you don't have to be. You can do both actually in the same day. You can do both in very, very similar spots, although you want some some varied tackle there. You don't necessarily want to be using your striper gear for perch or and vice versa. And then we'll talk a little bit about I get this question a lot. Actually, I think I've had at least a half a dozen tacks since Friday. I guess with the the weather turning better, people decided they were going to hit the water and got requests for, well, where should I go? So I I did full full disclosure, I did send some very specific spots to some people. But generally speaking, they're like, dude, I don't even know what rivers to hit. So I do have some rivers that I'll share with you for, you know, I have New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and even Pennsylvania, you can catch white perch, not in the numbers as the others, because you don't really have that brackish water there. It's more fresh, but Pennsylvania also does factor into this. So I'll I'll go through that. So with that said, let's let's jump into a couple of facts. I have a lot of notes here because I don't want to miss anything. I kind of said that this is like the ultimate white perch fishing guide. So I want to make sure that I don't skip anything that's really important. So let's let's first talk about their traits and kind of like their biology. So I already mentioned they do they can go in freshwater, salt water, they really thrive in brackish water. So think of the you know, a good example are these tidal rivers and creeks. Think about the Tacahoe in South Jersey. That's a good example, the Malacca. If you're fishing those, that's the type of water. So you have the it's it's the fresh meeting the salt, the salt water line does change. The fish will move closer and further from that depending on the time of year. But they are, as I mentioned before, they are schooling fish. So when you find them, they're usually in a very tight school. So when you're on the water, let's say you're on the water and you're not on land fishing for them, you can find them very easily with your fish finder and with your side scan because there are so many of them, even though they're smaller, there's so many of them in these schools that you'll be able to pick them up. And the important thing I want to point out is when you're out there looking for them, you got to look through the whole water column because they could be right up at the surface or they could be right down on the bottom. Now, I'll go through the depths that I that I would tell you that you should probably be looking at this time of the year, and and you're going to need to hunt through them unless you have a fish finder and you pick them up. But because they are very tightly schooling fish, you're going to be able to pick them up on a halfway dialed-in fish finder, especially a side scan where it's a lot easier to see them. So if you have one, get it, get it tuned in because it's going to it's going to benefit you on the water. All right. So let's talk about spring and why I'm saying this is probably the best time for you to be out there targeting the white perch. And and as I go through this, if you have any questions, throw them into the chat. I'll be sure to get to them as as well as I can. Of course, just do your own side conversations in there. You know, that's part of what this community is. But let's talk about spring. All right. So the important thing to remember about spring, and this is one of the reasons why I think it's great, is they're coming into the rivers and up there, they're moving up the rivers for spawning. So they're going to be spawning. And as the temperatures increase, like we've had in the mid-Atlantic over the last couple of days, that will kind of get that moving. They'll they'll get that spawn migration or not necessarily migration, but move moving. So they're going to start moving up the rivers. Now, I don't know what's going to happen with that with the forecasted temperature drops starting on Thursday. So we're basically going to have five good days, four to five good days, and then we're going back into the 20s and 30s, you know, highs in the mid-40s for the next week or so. And believe it or not, chance of snow. I I don't even want to talk about that, but a chance of snow. But they're, but with even with all that said, they are starting to move upriver to spawn as these temperatures have started to increase. It's it's kicked them off. I do have verification of that from many of you that have texted me or even called me over the past few days. They're starting to move up. And so away from the salt lines and further up into the fresh water. What you want to do is look for these stacked schools. And one of the best areas that you're going to look is the river bends. So if you're not really familiar with why river bends, I know a lot of people say, yeah, well, you definitely want to fish at bend. Well, one of the reasons why is what happens underneath the water on the bottom and the contours on the bottom of a river or a creek when you have it bend. What typically, not always, but typically happens is the outside of that bend is going to be deeper. It's going to have more current because that's where the current is flowing and hitting the far side of that river. It's that bend, that relief in the bottom that is typically going to hold a white perch. Think about it, very similar to a striped bass. They're going to be looking for that structure. They're going to be looking for those drop-offs, and a deep bend in a corner is typically a very good spot to look for them. It's like I said before, you can catch them in the same places. Doesn't mean they're always in the same place. But when all else fails and you know striped bass, start looking for striped bass in the deeper areas. Don't look for them up in the flats. You're not going to find too many of these up in the flats. But when you're talking the deeper water in the rivers and fishing for in rivers for striped bass, it's going to be very similar. Look for deep staging holes in these rivers. Now, right now, if they haven't pushed up, you will often find them closer to the salt line, so close further downriver, staging in deeper holes. Now, deeper holes doesn't necessarily mean 50 feet. And some of these rivers do have 50 feet, but look for holes that are deeper than the surrounding area. So if you have basically an area that is 8 to 12 feet, you're going to need to look down into maybe the 15 to 20 feet if you can find a hole. They will often sit in that hole, not necessarily on the bottom, but below that contour out of that main current. So the current is kind of coming over them and then sweeping down underneath them. So look for those deep staging holes before they start moving up those rivers and up those creeks. And as you're coming up these rivers, this is by far my favorite spot to look for them. It's the creek mouths. So where you had the convergence of two different flows of water into one area, and where that hits, that's typically where you're going to find these fish. They're very, they're very aggressive feeders. They're very aggressive. They're they're very man, they're they're kind of like a striped bass when they're feeding. I mean, they'll just keep feeding and feeding and feeding until they blow out an entire area. So when you can find the confluence of two currents coming together, you get all of the bait, all of the forage that's washing out of the creek, meeting with what's coming down in the current from the river. It gets mixed in those eddies and where those currents converge. And that's a good spot to start looking for them. I'll go more into that in a little bit. Now, as we go into summer, it changes a bit. Now, once you hit summer, you're still going to have the things like the river bends and everything like that. But this is where I start looking more towards, and I'm probably one of the few that actually fishes for them year-round. This is where I start to look more at the structure. So more similar to a resident striped bass. I'm looking at docks. I am looking at more shallow areas at that time, like riprap. And you can find some of that in some of these backwaters in South Jersey. You don't necessarily have as much of it in northern Jersey or New York, but you can find it. Maryland, it's it's all over the place. So start looking for areas that have some riprap, some rocks where the currents are coming around a structure and look for in the hottest days of summer, look for those shaded shorelines. They're going to be looking for some cover. They're just like any other fish. So they're not going to want to heat up and bake in the 95 degree weather. They're going to be looking for an area that's going to give them some relief and some shade. So if you can, if you can find that, that's definitely worth looking at. And then we get into the fall and the winter. I'm just going to say, I'm just going to do a whole different show for that. It's very similar. There are some differences, but we're not going to go into that because we're a long way from fall and winter. And we are absolutely in the spring pattern right now throughout the entire mid-Atlantic. So let's just focus on that for right now. All right. So let's go into the structure and locations. I've already talked about some of them. The river bends and the deep holes. I'm going to go into a little bit more detail on that. And I'm going to kind of go into things that I've talked about in other shows. And let's get into kind of how the water moves and what this means for these fish. So we're looking at basically these structures like the river bends, and we're looking at how the water is traveling, how the currents are moving. Now keep in mind, again, these are predator fish that are ambush predators. They're not like a tuna that's out there cruising around looking for their food. They're finding a place where they can school up, they can hang in an area, and the bait will come to them. They're like most other fish, many other fish that we target inshore. They want the bait to come to them and then they'll chase it once it comes into view and it gets close enough to them. It reduces their calorie expenditure, it makes it a much more productive meal for them. So think about the way that a river bend is set up or even a deep hole. As though current is coming, let's say downriver, you're going to have it coming through this deeper drop-off. And often on the riverbind, if you if you can just visualize it, and I can, you know, I can only use my hand here on the stream. For those that are listening on the audio only, I'll do my best. Think of it as the shape of a sea. So the water is coming down from top to bottom, and it's coming around that sea, and you had the deeper area on the outside along that outside bank. What you have then by default is the shallower area on the inside. That's the area where the bait is going to come over and then wash down into the deeper area. So what I would typically recommend is well, first you do fish the entire bend, but where you're most likely going to be catching them is where that water comes off of that shallow area, washes any of the bait down off of that and into the deep area. So you're you're talking probably mid-bend is where you want to be. And that's where you have this the strong current is still whipping around. So it's pulling everything that doesn't go over the shallows. And then you have the the mixture of everything coming over the shallows dropping down together. So if you can find that spot from that point below within that river bend, is typically going to be the best one. And I bring this up for a reason. River bends come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them can be a half a mile long, some of them can just be a matter of 30 or 40 yards. And the bigger it is, the more difficult time you're going to have with this because it's just a lot of territory. So always look for an area where you can kind of, you know, funnel them into one area. So you can assume that they're going to be in one spot over another. I'm always looking for the tightest bends possible. That's typically where I do best. And there's just much less hunting. You know, it's like fishing at low tide. When it's when it's low tide or it's lower tide, it's much easier to find where the fish are because there are so many places that become inhospitable to them. So they have to move. So you just move to places that are going to remain really comfortable for them and it kind of cuts down on the difficulty that you have. So think about that with the riverbands. They're not all created equal. And if you find one that just doesn't have a lot of a drop, I would move to another one where you get maybe some narrowing of the river and try to find one where you can kind of dial it in a little bit more. It's much easier to find them if you can do that. Now think about structures, the dock pilings and the bridges. Now, I don't talk about that for right now in the spring. However, you can still catch them there. It's just not, I just didn't talk about it a lot because for the spring, because it's not the first place that I go. But you think you let's say you're dropping into the the Tuckahoe, and there's a bridge right up in the Tuckahoe. You may want to fish that bridge. Think about the way that the water moves off of that, fishing the eddies behind it. So again, it's similar to if there's rocks in the water, it's similar to the riprap. The water's going to hit that, it's going to accelerate around the structure, and then it's going to have less current on the inside. So if you can get behind a big piling, you will often find the perch that are kind of settled in a tight school again, inside that eddy in the slower moving water. And basically what they're doing, they actually could be facing downstream at that point, even though the prevailing current is coming from upstream, because that eddy will then actually turn the water around and it will come back in the opposite direction. It makes it a little bit more difficult to fish if you're using artificials, but that's one of the one of the times where you would see me on the water with an artificial casting down current and bringing it up because then it's coming into the face. Otherwise, I'm going up current and bringing and retrieving with the current. You know, I talk often fishing for fluke off a bridge, and I say you cast it up current and then you just kind of bring it down with the current very slowly. Excuse me, very slowly, bounce it off the bottom. It's the opposite when you're on the other side of the bridge and you're fishing the down current side and you're fishing an eddy. Keep it in mind because it could be the difference between catching fish and not catching fish, even if they're there. If you're going from upstream, downstream within an eddy, you're often coming up by their tails. So by the time they see it, it's going past them, and they may or may not want to go after it. It won't look natural because the other bait is coming the other direction. And they may just opt to wait for something coming towards them that they already see and just let your lure or your bait go by as you retrieve it in that direction. So just a little tip there that'll that should help you in order to catch more of them. All right. So let's talk about the water depth. The water depth at this time of the year in the early spring, I'm typically looking up to about 12, maybe 15 feet max. Keep in mind the temperatures of the water and the temperature outside, and especially the sun. So when you have days like today in Most of or in much of the mid-Atlantic, where we had a lot of sun, they're going to tend to push into shallower water because it is more comfortable. It's going to heat up faster than the deep water. If the temperatures are low and they're very cold, they will typically stay deeper because they get a more consistent temperature down there. If you have a 30-degree wind and you have 38-degree water, they're going to stay down lower because they don't want that 30-degree exchange and temperature at the top. It's going to be colder at the top than it is at the bottom. So they'll often opt for the more consistent temperature down deep around that 15-foot area. So it's really a, you really have to prepare for it ahead of time. If it's going to be a hot day or a warming day with a lot of sun, you really need to get on that water prepared to go shallow. And when I say shallow, that's where, yeah, three feet could work. It changes the way that you're presenting things. But they also will pick up speed and aggressiveness when they get into the warmer water. So if you find a warmer flat at around three feet, again, I shouldn't say flat, you still want depth changes throughout. You want some contour changes so that it'll kind of funnel the bait still. But if you can get up in there, that's a good spot to use lures because you can move them a little bit easier, or you can just go with the bait. Now let's talk about the bait. All right. The bait is it's probably the best way to go right now at this time of the year. So if you don't like bait fishing, we'll get into the lures in a minute. But bait fishing is going to be one of the most productive ways to catch them in the spring, where they're still, you know, they're aggressive fish, but they're still a little bit less energetic than they're going to be later in the year. The number one hands-down consensus pick is going to be grass shrimp. All right. The consensus, not everyone's going to agree. Grass shrimp is often going to be the best because it's a very natural bait for this time of the year. It's a small bait, it's going to be moving through the water naturally. So if you have grass shrimp, you can throw it out there and it's going to match the hatch, right? So the best way to do it is you simply take the grass shrimp and put it on a small hook. That's it. Just a small hook. I use a top and bottom. It's very similar to a fluke, fluke setup. So I have, I actually do it a little bit differently. I have a weight on the bottom. I have about six inches above that, I'll have one hook. And then about 12 inches to 18 inches above that, I'll have another one. You can do three, you can do four if you want. You can certainly handle as long as you don't have the tiniest of rods. You can handle multiple hookups at one time. And quite often you will get double headers on these when you're fishing for them with grass shrimp or one of these other naturals. I want to mention though, if you're doing this, make sure you have the hooks that are appropriate for this species. In other words, don't go out with a striped bass size hook for white perch that is not a circle hook, because if you get caught, they're just going to look at you and say, no, you got a three-aught hook here, and you've got a natural bait on it, and it's not a circle hook, you're going for striped bass. They're not, they're probably not going to believe you because these white perch are not going to be eating a three-ought hook, typically. So make sure that you do, make sure you keep that in mind. But I just you I don't use circle hooks when I'm fishing for for white perch. And I don't know that I've ever gut hooked one. So I don't know. I guess you can gut hook them, but I I never have. So grass shrimp is number one. Number two, it pains me to say is going to be blood worms, and it pains me to say it because they're just so damn expensive. But they are a great, great bait to use. And I'm going to throw in here the alternative to the to the blood worms, and that's the fish bites. Fish bites are meant to mimic blood worms. And I did, when I was with Salt Strong, I did a test where I compared the two. And I would have one of each on on the line, and then I would have one rod just with just with blood worms, one just with the fish bites. They literally produce the same. I did get what I what I could recognize as larger fish on the blood worms, but just as many, if not more fish on the the fish bites. So you can always do that. It's a lot less expensive. You can still get a lot of action, you could still get a lot of really good fish. I really couldn't say that there was a good compelling reason for me to feel like I needed to go out and buy blood worms ever, ever again when going for white perch and using baits. I just don't recommend doing it because of the cost. If you if cost doesn't matter to you, yeah, go with the blood worms. But if it does matter, there's no reason that you need to. All right, next one small minnows. A lot of people overlook this. If now they have to be small. If you take the look at take a look at a white perch, they don't have the biggest of mouths, they're not like a striped bass. So small minnows and shiners are going to work, especially if they're alive. They're they're outstanding. It's an outstanding bait. Night crawlers are always going to be good. Regular earthworms are going to be good. And keep in mind, even with the blood worms, you don't need the whole thing on there. It's not like a it's not like a blood ball that you're making for striped bass. All you need is enough to cover the shank of the hook. It doesn't need to come off of the hook more than, you know, a quarter of an inch. So you're not, you're not trailing anything behind it. You're literally catching them on the scent and the and the vision of it, not the action. So save yourself a lot of money and cut those blood worms short if you're gonna, you know, I actually I thread them on. So I don't put them through the side or anything. I thread them straight down the middle and pull it out just like I'm I'm baiting up a soft plastic. And then I cut it as close as I can to the where the hook is rounding at the bottom of the shank. So there's very, very little hanging off. You can often catch multiple fish, maybe two, maybe three fish on one, on just baiting it once. So you could do that also with the nightcrawlers. Just don't overuse the bait. There's no need to do it, it's just a waste. The other one is regular shrimp. And actually, I got this. Steven actually sent this to me, and it's something that I have noticed. When you can't get grass shrimp, just use regular shrimp, but just use little pieces. Again, you don't need to use the whole thing. Just cut little pieces just enough to get over the shank of the hook. It doesn't have to be all the way up near the barb or anything, just enough for them just to bite the hook. Once they bite the hook, you're gonna hook them easily. It works perfectly. I use raw. I don't know if anyone uses cooked shrimp. I use raw shrimp when I use regular shrimp, but again, I am going in this order. I am going the grass shrimp, the blood worms, or the fish bites, small minnows, nightcrawlers. And the reason, the only reason I'm putting nightcrawlers down lower is because they're I'm typically fishing much closer to the salt. So it just, I don't know, it's just not natural for me to be using nightcrawlers, but I will. I will. If I can't hit a bait shop or I don't want to spend, as I'm seeing from Tim in the in the chat,$15 for a half dozen. Yeah, I'll just go grab some nightcrawlers. And then after that, I'm gonna use the regular shrimp kind of as the backup. I do want to mention, okay, there's a question in here from Tim. And by the way, Tim, thank you for signing up for a subscription to the to the YouTube channel. I appreciate that. Do Sabiki rigs work? I have not had any luck with Sabiki rigs. I I don't know. I I would think they should work. I have not had luck with them. Somebody could say they work awesome, and I wouldn't argue with them. I honestly don't know. I I thought that they would. I used them just I think once in the past four years, and I didn't, I don't remember catching anything on it. They work great for spot. I don't know why they wouldn't work for the for the for the white parts, but I I wouldn't do it. I I wouldn't, or at least I wouldn't start there. Yeah, I I just wouldn't. All right, let's see. The next comment in there. Yeah, here's here's a good comment. Great Bay Outfitters, grass shrimp is great. I had to refinance my house because it's like$312 for a pint right now. Yep. And that's the problem, right? I mean, that's the problem, or you could just pick up for six bucks the fish bites and it it's it's gonna work, you know. I I I don't know. I don't know. I it's just so expensive, but it is a great bait. The the blood worms are are are great. The grass shrimp is great, they're expensive. I think that's why some of the people are using the regular shrimp now. But again, just go just go with the uh the fish bites. Next question. Joseph Kylie, can you tell us what your preferred method of hooking your shrimp on the hook? I think I did that, but in case it wasn't clear, when I'm hooking the shrimp, first of all, I I only want to cover the shank when I'm going for white perch. And this is one of the few fish that I will say that about. I only want to cover the shank of the hook. I don't want to bury the barb in it. I don't want to do anything to have it hanging off so that it can get picked off. And I want to have it kind of like a slim profile. So when I'm doing it, I'm probably cutting the shrimp vertically and making strips out of it and then threading that strip onto onto the hook. And that's it. Now, when you have to do that, if they're larger shrimp, it they do come off quicker. But you know, getting getting a whole bunch of frozen shrimp, frozen raw shrimp from the grocery store is a lot cheaper than going out and getting grass shrimp. So I, you know, it's it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I do want to bring up this comment from Jeff, fish bites hold up well too. Yeah, I didn't mention that. So fish bites, if you haven't used them, it's like this it looks like bubblegum, like a little bubble gum strip, really thin. And inside is mesh. And the mesh is what really makes it hold up well because this this bubble gum-like covering, this and it is pink like bubble gum, it's it's kind of in the mesh. So as it sits in the water and it starts to dissolve, it's being held together by the mesh. And on top of that, your hook is going through the mesh. So they can't pull it off. And I'll tell you this: what you'll probably find is unless you like cutting it off every time, by the end of the day, you're gonna have like 20 or 30 mesh strips hanging off of your hook that you have to cut off at the end of the day because it's not easy to pull them off, especially when they're really small, without kind of risking hooking yourself. But they do hold up really well. Make sure though that you do take them off at the end of the day. It's one of those things that you do not want to leave on the rod when you put it back in the truck because it will stain if you put it, you know. If you're like me, I I transport the rods in the cab. And if you leave it on there and it and it touches while it's wet the seat, it can stain the seat. And unless you want to have pink seats, you probably don't want to do that. I luckily have never done it, at least not to my own car. I did it to my dad's car way back in the day. But yeah, and that was leather, so he was not happy. I don't know if he ever figured out exactly what caused it, but it was me. It was me and the fish bites. All right, let's go into the simple, the simple way to go out for them. If you've never gone out, all you need is something really light. A lot of people will use a freshwater trout rod and setup, and that is absolutely adequate. And it actually gives you a great fight for these fish. They will fight if you have the right gear. It'll feel like a fun fight for you. So use I would recommend doing that. If you want to step it up, do no more than freshwater bass gear. You don't need your saltwater stuff. The only concern that you would have is if you hook into a striped bass and you can't land it, then you might end up getting spooled or you might end up having to cut that line off. If you have a bad rod or drag set too tight, you might snap the rod. But I go really light and I actually use the brand and the type of rod that I hate the most in the world. I use often an ugly stick trout rod when I'm fishing for white perch. I use up to six pound test. And I just, like I said, I use that dropper loop method and I put the hooks on there. It's usually like I think it's a number one bait bait holder hook. Bait holder really works well when you're trying to keep these these baits on. So bait holder hooks, number one, I think, is what I use. And then just a small enough sinker to keep it vertical. So when I'm fishing for these with bait, I am vertical fishing for them. I'm not casting out typically for them. I am going over the side of the of the kayak or the boat, and I'm going straight up and down. And I only want enough weight on the bottom to keep me relatively vertical in the current. Now, typically I'm drifting with the current, so it's not a big deal. But if you have a lot of, if you know, you're going down 20 feet, you you might not be able to get away with a quarter ounce weight. You might need a half ounce weight or something like that. But go as light as you can. Remember, you're going to have the the the weight on the bottom and the hooks above. So you're going to feel all of those hits. So the the weight really isn't going to interfere with that. You don't have to worry about it being too heavy to feel the bite. You're always going to feel the bite. All right. So here's here's a couple of tips. When you're fishing for them and you want to go deep, what I will typically do is just go right off the bottom. And I will go about two to four feet and I will fish it kind of in reverse of what you might do when you're fishing for sheep's head. I don't start at the top of the column, I start at the bottom of the column. I will drop it down until it hits bottom and I'll bring it up a few inches and just kind of jig it in there. And you do jig it. You don't have to, but it it definitely works better when you jig. That was another test I did. Just a dead stick will absolutely catch. But when you're moving it, it just works that much better. I think part of it might be that it helps get the scent out into the water. And then when they come in and they can actually see it, then it triggers that bite. But you can catch them either way, but definitely want to jig it. Start right off the bottom and then just slowly bring it up from there. If you go 10 to 15 minutes in a spot and you're not getting anything, move. Don't stick around, don't wait for them. Like I said, they're very tightly packed. They're not these big schools that stretch over 40, 50 yards. No, they're going to be in tight to each other. So if you're not on them, you're not on them. So either look on the fish finder or and see if you can find them with a side scan, maybe, or just move to another spot that you think is going to be promising, unless you just want to sit and wait it out. If they're not biting, they're probably not there. You can usually get at least one to bite when you when you identify a school. So that's that's one thing that I'll say. The other thing that I'll say is this when you're bait fishing, bring a bobber. It sounds stupid. You feel like a little kid throwing in a pond. A bobber really helps when you when you find the depth that they're at. So let's say, and and I I do this quite often. Let's say you're out there and I'm in a kayak and I'm tossing around myself and I, or I find something, I'm in this big area, it's maybe 15 feet deep. And I find that I'm catching them at six feet, but I can't really hold right on top of them. So I kind of let myself drift off to the side. And now I want to cast to them. Well, I still need it to be down six feet. So that's where the bobber comes in. You just put the bobber on six feet above, toss it out and upstream, up current, and let it drift down through there, jig it along the way almost like a popping cork, but not, you know, you're not popping it like a popping cork, but you can still jig it and get some action on it. That'll keep it at about six feet down, and you can fish that entire column that entire way. It's very easy to do it that way. You may feel stupid using those dumb red and white bobbers. I always do for some reason, but it works. It works really well. So if you if you have bobbers, bring a bobber. And and once you find that depth, just lock it in with a bobber. Now, now you don't have to stay right on top. You can cast to them, you can cast around yourself and you can still hit that depth with the bait. All right. Let me see if I missed any questions. All right, so Paul is saying forward facing sonar is a game changer when scouting for perch. Yeah, so forward facing if you got the money, yeah. I mean, it's really gonna it's really gonna make the difference. I do not have one on my kayak. As a matter of fact, I'm thinking of selling my kayak because I'm gonna have to get a different one this year, I think. So I'm definitely not putting one on this kayak, maybe the next one, but forward facing sonar absolutely would be a game changer. And by the way, Paul just by chance can install it for you. He can sell it to you and install it for you. All right, let's talk about the artificial lures. I use artificial lures typically when I'm fishing for white perch, you know, just to tell you my story and a little bit of lure of rich, when I'm fishing down in the Chesapeake for white perch, I am typically using artificials. I'm using, again, a lot of freshwater stuff. So inline spinners, a size zero to a size two. I'm using so what you would use for trout. I'm using those. I'm going right up against the rock piles, I'm going right up against riprap. I'm I'm looking for the structure. And man, if you've never fished like the Y River as an example, and you want to go for white perch, it's it's insanity. I mean, you you could just get exhausted fishing for them in there pretty much at any time of the year. Uh, you just have to find where they are, but once you find them, you it's you're you're just locked in. Slow retrieves in the spring, slower than you would in the summer, along and near the structure. If you want to use a jig, you're looking at something that's really small for salt water, but you know, average for fresh water. So something that's like 132nd to 116th of an ounce, and then you're putting just a very small soft plastic on there. In this case, uh, if you're not using a worm or a grub on there, you're going to mimic the small minnows that I talked about earlier. So the smaller the better. So you're talking like two inch is going to be a decent size, inch and a half. Those are going to be perfect sizes for them. Let's see, fly fishing. Okay, yeah. So I wrote down a couple of a couple of things. And I realize that most of you don't fly fish. And I realize that even fewer of you fly fish in in freshwater. And you definitely want to use your freshwater gear for this. But use small clauser minnows. And if you're if you want to use artificials and you want to use a teaser, these are what I would use as the teaser as well on your spinning gear. So a clauser minnow, something that's got the weighted eyes on there, it'll get it down a little bit. Clausers are amazing. They're amazing for almost everything, but small ones, woolly buggers also work, and some nymphs do as well. I, in the just couple times that I ever used a nymph, I never caught one on it. But apparently, through my research, it is a very common and popular pattern. Personally, I stick with the clausers because it for me it's easier to go subsurface, get down deep with the clauser than pretty much anything else. And then after that, the woolly buggers do work. They they push a lot of water, they make a little bit of a disturbance. But those are great, great lures or flies to use as teasers as well. Paul is putting in there micro blades work well. They do. I mean, you're basically, you know, when when you kind of think about it, if it's good for a striped bass, it will work for these guys. It will just size it down. You know, just size it down really far because they don't have the giant mouth. They have a whole different biology, but but it's the same type of thing, and they do hunt the same way. They are the ambush predators. So yeah, I mean, I I would absolutely, I would absolutely use the microblades as well. The best thing about using these artificials is you can cover a lot of water, and that's why I use it when I'm fishing, for example, the Y River. It's a big river, and you know, it's far, it's it's a big, diverse river. I've caught mackerel, Spanish mackerel in there, I've caught speckled trout, I've caught flounder. I I didn't even know they would go that far up into the bay and up into the river, but I've caught I've caught summer flounder in there, caught a ton of white perch and a ton of striped bass, typically schooly size, but just a ton of them. So there are so many places in there that can hold different species, and there's so many little spots. So having the artificials, it makes it easier to cover a lot of territory quickly. And that's what I use it for, basically for searching it out. And then when I find them, I may switch over to a multi hook bait setup. All right. A couple of things that you can do. Again, I mentioned if you're not catching them and you think they're there, I just go 10-15 minutes and just move. This is not a fish that you have to sit and wait for all day. It's not like you're shark fishing and you're trying to draw them in from all over. No, seek them out. If they're not biting, move on. Chumming. If you can afford the grass shrimp, it is a great chum to put out in the water. I don't do it. I there's something that I just I can't get into chumming unless it's for shark, but it it does work. And once once it does work, I mean you're gonna be on fish, you're gonna have school after school coming in on top of each other. I don't think it's necessary in most cases. I would save the chumming for the shark and and for winter flounder personally. Oh, and by the way, I'm trying to get a winter flounder guest coming up for those that are interested. I already mentioned this, but adjust your depth. So go to the bottom, then go to mid-water in the column, and then go up looking for the suspended fish. You're most likely going to find them at mid-column or below, but you need to fish the entire column because you can absolutely be in one spot fishing the bottom and mid-column, catch nothing, and then we and then find out that if you just fish three feet, you're gonna catch a ton of them. If you don't have a fish finder, you may never know that that you missed them just because you were going too deep. So don't ever assume that you have to go down to the bottom. All right, and then the last thing that I want to go through is what I promised I would do for those that reach out and ask where they can go. So I only I only went out and I I identified three just examples of river systems for spring white perch that you can go to. So for the New York viewers and listeners, the Hudson, the Mohawk, and the Niagara, all of those are going to have plenty of white perch in them. And in the spring, I mean they're gonna be packed. If if you've never fished for them, go out there and check it out. I mean, they're all going to be packed. The the problem is they're pretty big. Like these are not little minor systems. It's not like we're talking like the Tuckahoe in South Jersey, where you can essentially jump across it in some spots. You know, you got a lot more water in there, so you're gonna have to do a little bit more work to find them, but you're gonna have a lot more in there also as compared to some of these South Jersey rivers. So the Hudson, the Mohawk, and the Niagara are all well known for spring, actually, not even just spring, but year-round white perch. If you're gonna be in New Jersey, just to move south, Raritan River, absolutely. The Mullika River is my my second favorite. Maurice River is outstanding, and I will and I've mentioned the Tucko a couple times. That's my favorite. All of those are again, they're they're large tidal connected waters. So you're going to have that salt line somewhere in that river down near the the inlets or down near the ocean, and it just sets up perfectly. You can catch some monsters in there. I I saw some pictures from this weekend, just some monsters getting pulled out right now. For those that are in the comments, you can read the comment. I'm not going to put it up there and talk about it, but yeah, a little hint in there. Maryland. So the the Patuxent River, the Potomac, and the Chop Tank. I fished the Chop Tank for them. I fished the Y for them. Both are outstanding. I have not fished for them in the Patuxent or the Potomac, but anywhere off of the Chesapeake is essentially going to be, in my opinion, the best place to find them in the entire eastern seaboard. It is just set up for them throughout. I mean, the the bay itself is just amazing. And once you get into these rivers that are feeding it, it's it's just perfect. It's like the perfect brackish mix all the way up to Pennsylvania. And that's where we go into Pennsylvania. You will find them in Pennsylvania. It's generally going to be fresh water, right? So they can exist in both. But the Delaware River, you can catch them in the Delaware. Obviously, that does connect. But again, huge river. Huge river. But the Delaware works, the Susquehanna works, and then the Schuylkill River, you can catch them. That's right near my house. I've never fished for them in the Schuylkill, but you can. Now, the numbers in the Pennsylvania areas, with the exception of the southern Delaware River, they're not going to compare to any of the other places that I've talked about. But if you want to get out for them, it's legit. Like you can just target them for the day, and you don't have to go out thinking it's a long shot. It's not. You can target them, you can get them, you can have a very successful day. Yeah, so that's that's gonna do it. That's gonna cover everything that I had. Let me just see if there's anything. So Tim's gonna be out there tomorrow. He's gonna take advantage of these five days. Um, yeah, there are some things in there. Um be careful when you're out there. You're gonna catch striped bass too. So yeah, just be aware of that. Be prepared. Um be be very prepared for catching the bigger fish. Um, so don't go under-geared and uh just don't go over-geared either because you won't have as much fun. So, yeah, so that covers it. I'm not sure who's coming on next week. I am, as I said, I'm working on winter flounder. Uh, the season, it's a great season, it's an underfished season. This is the time of year to talk about uh to talk about these fish that most people don't get on. Some people don't like fishing for striped bass. Well, if you don't go for white perch because white perch is a hell of a lot of fun. A hell of a lot of fun. And uh I would probably go for the white perch first. I haven't been on the water, I have back issues, so you can see I'm kind of struggling in this chair for this entire time. Um I would I would go for the white perch before striped bass when I go out on the water to target. I I target the perch first, maybe switch over to bass, but it's just so much fun. Gear down, have fun, use the fish bites, check the water column, go through the entire thing. If you're in a kayak, as Paul mentioned in the chat, wear a dry suit. If you don't have a dry suit, don't go on the water. I don't care if you hate me for saying it, you have no business on the water at this time of the year in a kayak if you don't have a dry suit. Uh if you go in the water, the chances that you die are huge. And uh if you're with people and you think, oh, well, my friend can pull you out, you're just putting them at risk. I've had that happen with me and friends that have fallen in in cold water. I was in a dry suit, they were not, they were very unhappy afterwards, and they bought a dry suit immediately thereafter. Uh, and I'll say it one more time. I am alive today because I wore a dry suit in the Raritan in March. And uh this was several years ago, but I would not have made it out of there without a dry suit. So wear the dry suit, stay alive, uh, stay with the community, man. We we need you guys to all stick with us. And uh we'll be back next week. I'll announce the guests hopefully later this week. So until next time, everyone, enjoy this warm weather and get out, get on the water, and get some tight lines.