Perch Patterning Bass
By Andrew Ragas As the seasons undergo a change, a pattern often overlooked by northern bass anglers takes place. Beginning during the pre-turnover stages of the fall cooldown period, schools of yellow perch gravitate to shallow vegetation for sanctuary and feeding. On the prowl, hungry wolfpacks of smallmouths counter. As water temperatures cool to 60 degrees and lower, northern bass anglers often believe that smallmouths will immediately migrate to their overwintering areas, bypassing easy opportunities to ambush prey. What these anglers disregard is that in most yellow perch populated waters, large populations of smallmouths will delay this movement for up to several weeks based on water temperatures, turnover stage, and presence of this forage species, remaining in the shallows to feed. Understanding this correlating feeding movement between juvenile perch and adult smallmouth bass generates results, and may yield the largest fish of the season during difficult seasonal transitions, and the adverse period known as turnover. The fall perch pattern is underutilized and little known in my regions of the north country. It's so far off the bass fishing mainstream that a rec