Flathead lake Fishing Report from the MacMan

Spring perch fishing great on Flathead Lake

By DICK ZIMMER/Zimmer Tackle

The perch bite everyone has been waiting for on Flathead Lake has finally kicked in.

Water temperatures as of Tuesday April 16 were hovering near 45 degrees.

This is just warm enough to activate them. I had to work hard to catch what I did. I didn’t catch but 4 or 5 fish that I thought were too small to fillet. Most of them were large males with a few jumbo females. 

The perch wanted a relatively small presentation with our “smile” set up working better than a fuzz bug or perch fly. Pink on the hooks and bottom weight was a plus. Night crawlers were more productive than cut perch although chumming with small pieces of perch seemed to keep the fish close to the boat. Predicted warmer temperatures should make for more active fish.

The best way to insure a continued supply of large perch is to put a lot of fishing pressure on them. The thousands of perch harvested from East Bay over the last 4 or 5 years have been the best management for a continuing great fishery. If we get some decent warm spring days in the next couple of weeks and water temperatures over 50 degrees fishing will continue to improve for these perch. There will be some small mouth activity as well as in East Bay on Flathead Lake. For more information email us at macman@ronan.net. Our web site is www.zimmertackle.com or call us at either the store 406-675-0068 or my personal cell 406-250-0241 Good Fishing The Macman