You’d be hard-pressed to find a more complete multi-species freshwater fishery in the United States than the waters surrounding Door County, Wisconsin, north of Green Bay. For example, the father-son duo of Scott and Calvin Richard will fill the spacious rear livewell of their Vexus® DVX22 with everything from brown trout to smallmouth and walleye too in the weeks ahead.
However, few angling adventures on Green Bay or Lake Michigan bring a grin to Team Richard’s faces quicker than the chance to catch yellow perch for a “hook and cook” gathering with family and friends.
Fried perch dinners are as much a tradition in Door County as cheese curds and Packer watch parties, but these days, area anglers are a whole lot less reliant on high-maintenance minnows to catch them, opting instead for micro-sized soft plastic lures.
“My buddy Finn Stuth and I first tried using the little soft plastic minnow style baits after our English teacher told us about the pattern, and we had success right away,” says Calvin Richard, who is headed to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville this fall, after graduating with high honors from Sturgeon Bay High School.
Heaven knows, his dad Scott has spent enough money over the years buying minnows at Howie’s Tackle in Sturgeon Bay to equal the cost of a semester’s tuition, so he welcomes the newfound soft plastic substitute.
“Not only does it save us a stop on the way to the launch ramp, but it adds to our efficiency on the water because we’re not stopping to rig a slippery fresh minnow after every perch we catch. A single soft plastic minnow has the capability of catching a legal limit of 15 perch, versus going through three dozen minnows,” says Calvin’s dad, Scott.
SO WHAT SOFT PLASTIC MINNOWS ARE THEY USING?
Numerous lure manufacturers make dainty minnow imitators, including Lunker City’s Grubster, Damiki’s Armor Shad, Keitech’s Swing Impact and Easy Shiner, as well as Big Bite Bait’s Kamikaze Swimon in the 2.5” size, but the key is to stay in that 2.5” range, and don’t get carried away with the weight of the jig head.
Scott and Calvin use Ned heads and mushroom shaped heads in the 1/16 or 3/32 size, and on a rare occasion go up to a 1/8.
For line, they favor 4 or 6-pound fluorocarbon, paired to a medium light action, 6’ 6” medium light action St. Croix rod.
WHERE TO LOOK FOR PERCH
The Richard family finds the majority of their yellow perch within sight of Sturgeon Bay’s famous draw bridges and ship building yards, typically around patches of submerged vegetation in depths of 6 to 12-feet, not requiring a trip into big water or big waves.
No matter your hometown in the Great Lake’s region, the tiny soft plastics are a player from the time young alewives become more prevalent in the shallows around April, all the way through Thanksgiving.
DON’T FORGET TO DROP SHOT THEM TOO
Anglers should also strongly consider rigging these tiny soft plastic minnows on a drop shot rig too. Again, it only makes sense on any yellow perch rig typically married to a live minnow.
My bride Sherrie proved this true, as she chose to drop shot a tiny soft plastic minnow, and made myself and Bassmaster Classic runner-up, Adam Rasmussen look like rank amateurs amid a recent yellow perch jerking trip in his Vexus.
It was a gorgeous 82-degree summer day in Door County, and she did far more jerkin than Rasmussen and me with her drop shot rig.
It was a day that certainly made me proud to get beat by a girl, and Rasmussen’s wife joked that had Sherrie not caught so many fish, we might have been ordering pizza instead of sharing plates of delicious perch fillets.
So, cheers to girls who can catch ‘em, and a newfound highly effective, low maintenance alternative to minnows.
