Perching Manresa good 2/23/07

At high tide this afternoon I hit Manresa - a stewpot of surf and wind and whitewater out a couple hundred yards.   As someone suggested on this board recently, I used just the head of a 3" morf grub so that the curve of the hook looked like the tail. I needed two 3/4 oz egg sinkers to get out into the wind and get it down.  Got two 9" barred perch and a couple little ones in the two hours I was there.  Gave the big ones to a guy who was getting skunked using grass shrimp and a big pyramid sinker.

Glad to hear you got some.I was thinking about heading down to Manresa (I live two blocks away) today and decided to take care of some work instead.If the swell picks up as predicted, the perching might slow down over the next few days.If I can get away next week I'll hit it one more time before the Sandcrab Classic.

  Hi Tom!

I'm glad you caught some perch. I have a couple of ideas for you. Since you're willing to use a fraction of a 3" morf grub, why not try using a whole 3" grub sometime? In my experience, larger perch will hit the 3" grubs after ignoring the 2" variety. Another idea is to get morf plastic worms with curl tails and experiment with different lengths until you find the size the big perch really want! That little technique has worked quite well for me. One other thing- I have read that surf perch have very good color vision, so experimenting with different morfs might lead to finding that one killer color!

Paul
 

Hi Paul,

I think what Tom was using is this set-up.  It is actually a 4 to 5 " worm.

Ken kickfish

 Hi Ken!

Yeah, I think I get the idea. The plastic looks like part of a Senko. I think that lure could have a very erratic action in the surf currents, which might be just what the perch want on some days. However, it wouldn't wiggle or produce vibrations like the curl-tail plastics. I imagine that the lure action could be made more or less erratic by using a blunter or more tapered leading end.

I guess that results in a number of surf perch grub options:
-1", 2" or 3" length
-straight or curl tail
-blunt leading end or tapered leading end
-thin body or fat body

Maybe 3x2x2x2=24 different options, not including colors. Not bad for fishing...

I prefer to use a 3", curl tailed, thin bodied piece of a morf plastic worm with a blunt leading end on a #4 bronze Aberdeen hook. I also prefer to use a bullet sinker above the swivel. They seem to pick up less debris, grab the bottom less and allow the rig to move around more naturally with the currents.

So, are short, straight grubs working better than curl-tail grubs these days?
Does anyone besides me use anything longer than 2" on their hook for perch?

Paul

That photo is pretty close to what I used, tho I think the head on mine was from a shorter grub,but about the same length head.  Also, I think I had about a 2-3 foot leader. 
   I have only perched a few times and it amazes me that a fish could find anything by sight or smell in the stew of whitewater and sand, it's just my wild guess that they must nibble on a lot of stuff before finding something that seems edible.

It looks like a sandcrab.  Probably, the number #1 meal of perch.  No tail means more hook-ups because with a tail they nibble on the tail.  With the hook being on the end...there are no missed hits.  I used a 2 oz to 3 oz egg sinker.  Cast out and let it sink to the bottom.  Reel in slow.  All kinds of colors work.  Somedays, they want a certin color.  I use motoroil first, then greens, pumkinseed, purples and even white & yellow.

This is meant for larger perch.  But, you will be surpise how the small one will attack this set-up.  Like all things...somedays it don't work.

Your leader lenght is important.  Clear water...sometimes a longer leader will work better than a short one.  Or, if the water has a lot of foam to it.

Ken kickfish