About
I have been a fishing fanatic since I was old enough to hold a rod. As a kid in the Adirondacks of northern NY, I began with brook trout, bass and bullhead, and I tied my own flies during winter time. Once I was tall enough to handle an auger, I found my true passion: jigging perch and panfish through the ice.
Lake George and Lake Champlain are two incredible perch fisheries, each requiring their own tricks to consistently catch good numbers. For the past 20 years, I have spent every available moment jigging perch with my friends and eventually my wife and kids. I love to learn and share. There is nothing like watching a kid or a first-timer catching their first perch. I still get excited every time I get a nibble as if it was my first perch.
I give seminars on perch fishing at churches and sportsman’s shows across NY and spend hours studying the feeding habits and life/seasonal cycles of perch. I don’t have it all figured out. We still get skunked some days, but we often fillet over a 1,000 yellow perch each winter and have a lot of fun.
As a stone mason, I often have extra time in the winter, so I started making and selling what I consider essential rigs and jigs and making How-To videos to help people get more perch in the pail. I have had invaluable help from my wife Mel, and my friend and fishing buddy Ken, who handles much of the shipping and internet stuff as well as research and developing new products. My buddy Michael has helped develop and rigorously test the fly rigs, and he has tied hundreds of them.
I hope we can help you catch more fish and I love to hear of your techniques and tricks. Thanks for visiting this site and good luck on the ice!
Roger and Friends
When you check a perch's stomach it is usually filled with tiny larva and nymphs. That is the perch's main food in the weed beds, and it does not take much to convince them to eat it. Many days the barometric pressure eliminates a perch's ability to consume or digest a large meal. Nymphs are the bread and butter of most pan-fish's diet, larger minnows are a turkey dinner. We have been trying to force spoons and jig heads down their throat with electronic flashers for a few years now, but sometimes it pays to go back to the basics. Give them what they want and they will bite it.
Perch are notorious nibblers rather than eaters. This small fly gets right in their mouth in one gulp resulting in less missed hits than a larger presentation. Clip on a 1oz. sinker to the bottom and a jig pole with 4-6 lb. test on the top and you can present a weightless nymph at eye level to a hungry perch in a matter of seconds. You don't have to worry about your flasher battery dying.
This can be an effective presentation in shallow water and very useful for reaching deep water weed beds where the perch are schooled up in 20 to 50' of water. Even when the fish are taking everything, this is still the most effective method because you can get the flies back down to the bottom very quickly and keep the schools around longer.
The 15 pound test clear fluorocarbon line holds the fly out from the mainline swimming naturally.
The rig does not tangle easily, and a big fish won't snap off. We have iced several lake trout and pike on this rig. I used to put up with the problems that come along with light line thinking 15 pound test would scare the fish away. That is not the case. The stiffer line is much more durable and less apt to tangle. We fished a few times per week last winter and put over 700 perch in the freezer and a dozen lake trout with just a few rigs. The flies are set about 7.5" apart, giving you two levels of presentation to the strike zone, sometimes producing double fish catches. See it work on our You Tube videos.
I hand tie each one of these rigs. I tie in a dozen different patterns of nymphs, scuds, caddis larvae and some epoxy minnows. If you name a color or pattern in the buyer comments, I'll try to get it in your package. If you order multiple rigs I will be sure to send a variety of flies to try on your lake.
Good luck on the ice this year and thanks for looking!
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