The ice was 10 to 12 inches thick at Curlew by the time I joined Allan for a couple days of perch fishing. Allan started ice fishing on Sunday, Feb 2nd. He had 4 days on the ice before I joined him. He had very good success each day catching as many as 100 perch on Tuesday, the 4th. Vince W from the club spent a couple days with him early in the week and they cleaned 67 perch on Monday.

Fishing when I arrived was not as red hot as previous days. We cleaned 47 perch on Thursday and 50 perch on Friday. Both days were very slow in the morning into the mid afternoon. On Thursday, we had 7 keepers at 330 pm. On Friday, there were only 5 perch in the bucket at 330 pm. Coincidently, the bite began in earnest both days as the sun approached the mountain horizon, and when the fish moved in they fed aggressively. When perch were stacked below us, a 5 mm tungsten jig tipped with a couple maggots would trigger bites within seconds of entering the strike zone. When the bite was slow, rattle spoons and tiny glide baits worked 3 to 5 feet above the bottom attracted random perch for a distance, but they frequently would not bite. Competition within a school of perch seemed to be necessary for fish to be aggressive. We parked at Tiffany’s resort for a daily fee and made the short walk to productive flats and humps that ranged from 20 to 45 feet deep.

Allan and Greg: Curlew Lake - Feb 6-7