I have questions.
Ice fishing for perch getting hammered by dinks. 15-20 feet of water. Last saturday I iced over 100 perch, kept 15, biggest maybe 11-12", rest were 8" or 9". 14 females, 1 male in what I kept. Threw back a bucket load of 5" perch. Don't know why so many females, maybe the fatter perch look bigger to me -keep fatties, throw back skinnies maybe.
Do the bigger perch mingle with the little fish, or are they elsewhere?
When I was jigging, maybe 6-12" off of the bottom I could see the little guys come up on the flasher. It wasn't hard to work them up to about 4' off of the bottom before they took it. I was thinking maybe the bigger fish might be more aggresive and willing to leave the safety of the bottom (there are northern pike, bull trout, and northern pikeminnow in the lake) but the little ones were coming up off the bottom quite a ways.
Used a few different setups, litle rocker jig, hali-jig, lead head jig with green lizard bait. All tipped with a spike.