| I ice fish for white perch in a tidal river off of Great Bay.
I use the same bait and rigging (i.e. little jig poles) as I do
for smelt. If your interested, maybe you, Bear and I could get together
this year (along with any other interested people). The white perch
are funny though. Sometimes they run the same time as smelt (i.e.
as soon as there is safe ice), sometimes they run towards the end
of the season (late Feb.-early March), and sometimes they don't
run at all (one year out of 5 they never ran). It doesn't really
matter though because if you don't catch perch you'll catch smelt
or vise/versa or you might even catch both on some nights. Whatever
the case you rarely have to wait much over a minute between bites.
Now that I have a smoker I'll probably smoke some. They are
good using just about any known recipe as they have little to no
fishy taste. I've had them baked, broiled, and fried and they were
good every time.
If you want more info check out the smelt fishing notes. Holeshot
Joe and Don Mac have been and are also familiar with the how's,
when's, and where's of smelt fishing if you run across either of
them.
RAYJ
BTW - This is one of my favorite winter activities and I believe
this will be my 5th or 6th year going.
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