Patrick and I met Allan around lunch time on Friday at the lake. Prior to this trip, none of us had fished Curlew. Allan had fished Wed and Thu and found a pattern that produced 30 perch (released) on Thu. The bite was slow for Allan Fri morning, but the 3 of us started punching holes in the ice and found the perch deeper than the day prior which made sense given the sunny skies. By sunset, we had 35 perch between 8 and 12 inches in the bucket.

Saturday and Sunday were cloudy and cold with temperatures in the 20s. Thankfully there was very little wind so we were comfortable without a shelter. By spreading the 3 of us out and drilling a bunch of holes, we found schools of active fish. The bite was shallower Sat and Sun allowing us to fish quickly and toss back small fish. We caught 140 perch on Saturday by 330 PM and 120 perch by 2 PM on Sunday. We kept about 100 perch for the trip.

More info for club members: We fished the north end of Curlew out of Tiffany’s Resort. It cost $10 per day to use the parking lot. Access to the lake is limited so it was worth the cost. It was an easy 100 yard walk to the area folks were fishing. We caught fish in depths ranging from 25 to 45 feet. Perch mortality was high in depths greater than 40 feet, so we did our best to find schools in the 25 to 30 ft range. Small jigging spoons like Northland’s Buckshot Rattle Spoon and Forage Minnow Spoon were productive with a couple maggots on the trebble or dropper chain hook. Tungsten jigs tipped with one maggot worked great after the jigging spoon attracted the school. Allan also caught a pile of fish tipping his jig with a perch eye. Most perch were caught within 1-2 feet of the bottom.

Allan, Patrick, Greg: Curlew Lake - 1/21-23