Calgary's Lake Sundance Perch fishing outing on Sun Jan 18, 2009

[Sundancefisher]

I will be going perch fishing here in Lake Sundance on Saturday.

PM me with your phone number if you want to come and catch perch.

You need an ultra light rod tip, 6 lb test and small weighted perch jigs with a fly dropper. Any new techniques that can outfish me would be most appreciated. Also looking to catch big perch on Sunday if possible for live tank.

Cheers

Sun

P.S. If anyone can pick me up some Genz Worm, glow charteuse two smaller sizes probably 6 and 8 as well as a accuview camera tripod...I would reimburse. I can not get down to wholesale or fishin hole this week.

[goose]

Hi Sundance, myself and my son-in -law would really like to come out with you on Sunday. I have a bunch of new green worms your after but I work right beside the fishing hole so I could pick them up for you no problem if they are in stock. As far as the acu - view I don't know what model your after.
regards
Goose

[Sundancefisher]

Hi Sundance, myself and my son-in -law would really like to come out with you on Sunday. I have a bunch of new green worms your after but I work right beside the fishing hole so I could pick them up for you no problem if they are in stock. As far as the acu - view I don't know what model your after.
regards
Goose

I can check but I just need the tripod that makes adjusting the camera cord easier... :-) It can be entertaining watching a perch bite your hook then fly straight up at warp speed.

If it is model dependent...I will check tonight.

Cheers and thanks

Kevin

[Sir. Kenneth]

Where abouts is Sundance lake in calgary?

[Sundancefisher]

Where abouts is Sundance lake in calgary?

NE of Macleod and HWY 22X

[Sir. Kenneth]

NE of Macleod and HWY 22X

Is this a private lake?

[Dark]

I use the remote controlled tripod and love it, we can look 360* around the hole and often see fish in the distance when we look around. It also seems to bring the pike in we've had quite a few eat the camera lol

[nicemustang]

It is a private lake, hence the gracious invite by the original poster.

[happy perch fisher]

I will be going perch fishing here in Lake Sundance on Sunday.

PM me with your phone number if you want to come and catch perch.

You need an ultra light rod tip, 6 lb test and small weighted perch jigs with a fly dropper. Any new techniques that can outfish me would be most appreciated. Also looking to catch big perch on Sunday if possible for live tank.

Cheers

Sun

P.S. If anyone can pick me up some Genz Worm, glow charteuse two smaller sizes probably 6 and 8 as well as a accuview camera tripod...I would reimburse. I can not get down to wholesale or fishin hole this week.

You know its illegal to transfer live fish away from the lake.

[hockeyfish]

hey, i just got an aquarium for christmas and i was thinking of doing the same thing as you...i'll probably just put in a couple of small perch though!

[Badback]

You know its illegal to transfer live fish away from the lake.


Even private lakes that are not regulated by the government, you don’t need a fishing licence to fish at Sundance.

[happy perch fisher]

Even private lakes that are not regulated by the government, you don’t need a fishing licence to fish at Sundance.

I could'nt understand what u meant by your post.

But same thing applys there your not aloud to transfer gamefish period. I could care less if u put them in a fish tank. But if fish and wildlife bust yah there going to view it as transfering them from lake to lake.

[Sundancefisher]

yes this is a private lake and you need to be a guest of a resident.

yes it is highly illegal to transport live fish...even from a private lake. Yes I have a fish collection licence and transportation licence for this... No the perch are not for a private personal aquarium. I would not need help for this as I catch over a hundred in a day.

my AquaVuiew is an older model Just says Aqua-VU MC (Multi-color). It has a 60 foot black cord. Just need the manual tripod. I saw it advertized once upon a time for about 20 bucks. It pinches the cord and lets you twist the top. It is very interesting watching the perch behavior. I really, really want to make a video but I can not seem to get anything I have to work with it.

The three main perch feeding behaviors I see are:

1. Panic Feeder - Every 5 minutes or so a perch comes screaming through the field of view and hammers the hook like a trout. Generally hook sets itself. Very aggressive feeding behavior. I think this has something to do with competition and seeing other perch around and a handy meal staring the perch in the face. Eat before you lose it kind of idea. Hooks held still works best.

2. Home Feeding - Resident perch (perch that just hang around and really never leave the field of view) basically stay hunkered down in the weeds at the bottom of the lake. When a hook falls to the bottom they tend to come out and move towards the falling hook. Before the hook hits bottom a perch has often struck the hook without any indication thereof at surface. Then as the hook sits there the perch slowly move over to survey the new arrival. They tend to pick at any bait and in general occasionally try to "suck in" the hook. If a weighted jig this fails. I started using a dropper fly and the perch tend to suck in the fly easier if lighter like a scud or chironomid pattern. Sometimes the perch just stare at the hook and swim away. They also seem to like jigging less and shy away. They do however get excited and can be induced to strike with a slow rising ultra short wiggle (similar to a natural chironomid rising (Youtube has some videos of this for reference). Then often some perch will rise from the weeds and chase the hook up as high as 4 or 5 feet and can strike at any time. Otherwise holding hook motionless seems to work often. Sometimes the hogs seem to be loners just circling around. They get turned off my jigging and the hordes of little fish. They go ballistic seeing a live minnow (illegal in public waters). A live leech should work really well also for larger Home Feeders.

3. Feeding School - This is most interesting and often overlaps Home Feeding. This is where a loose school of perch will swim partially suspended about 1-2 feet off bottom. They are very aggressive and will chase other fish away in a rush to get to the hook. You can often keep a school around longer the quicker you get your hook back to the bottom. A light jigging behavior lures them in but still or relatively still with minor short jigging actions work best. While perch tend to school in somewhat similar class range, a school of 8 inchers will often have some hogs with it.

The Frabill pan fish popper with the tiny spring at the end works great to see the tiny bites. Usually the little spring hardly moves and the rod rarely moves at all. Small jigs work the best. I like glow in the dark chartuese.

Cheers all.

Sun

[cujo1969]

Why dont they open it up to everyone to fish more of the perch out?

[BobLoblaw]

Why dont they open it up to everyone to fish more of the perch out?
Dude, that's a high class neighborhood; do ya think they're just gonna let us riff-raff in there unsupervised? I sure wouldn't if I was them!

BTW, thanks, Sundance for the offer. I had a blast there last weekend, & really enjoyed the meals of perch. Gotta see if I can re-arrange my schedule for Sunday...
Later,
Steve

[Sundancefisher]

Why dont they open it up to everyone to fish more of the perch out?

You always have to maintain control or chaos reins...

Trick is to get the community and their friends from outside to start fishing for perch.

Unlimited perch means free meat!!!!!

[Sundancefisher]

I will get back to those people first to respond until I have enough to get in. :innocent: I will let everyone know the where and when.

The response has been overwhelming. I hope you all can live up to the expectations of being bonafide kick ***** perch ice fishermen! :D

If you do not PM me your phone number I will not be able to get back to you.

Cheers

Sun

[goose]

Hi Sundance, please call me at work 403-250-4503 as I can't figure out how to pm you. I can pick up your tripod for you if they have it is stock. I will check tomorrow at the fishing hole.
goose

[Lethalconnection]

Last time i was at sundance i walked out with a Safeway bag full of perch and a $5 Starbucks certificate as a door prize at the tourney :lol: love to go but ive got a date with a 45" jack;):lol:

[Sundancefisher]

Hi Sundance, please call me at work 403-250-4503 as I can't figure out how to pm you. I can pick up your tripod for you if they have it is stock. I will check tomorrow at the fishing hole.
goose

No problem Goose. In the future to PM someone I believe you just click on their name...

Cheers

Sun

[merk1]

I have a question in regards to what happy perch fisher said earlier. Is it the same when your driving down the road with the live well in the boat is full of fish? Just wondering if there is something I'm doing wrong. Does the live well have to be empty to be legal?

[Sundancefisher]

I have a question in regards to what happy perch fisher said earlier. Is it the same when your driving down the road with the live well in the boat is full of fish? Just wondering if there is something I'm doing wrong. Does the live well have to be empty to be legal?


Transportation of live fish is illegal...

[ice-raft]

Hi Sundance,

I live at Lake Chaparral and love to catch perch. How I get out to Sundance with you on Sunday?

I am equipped to catch perch and can bring along my ice flasher sonar if it will help us find em.

Ice-raft.

[happy perch fisher]

I thought i post this because i bet this is whats going to happen eventually. Sundance what size of perch are u taking hopefully nothing over 8 inches. But most likely hood your only keeping that size and bigger. What will probably happen same thing like spring people will keep haversting all the big perch 6+inches this making them seem stunted. If u will wanted to stop the stanting u would take all the perch in 4-7inch range and toss the big ones back. But you probably arn't doing that so all your going to do is just remove all the bigger perch. Which will eventually end up making the lake seem stunted. I know you guys are going to spazz on me but it does'nt matter really. Just posting whats more then likely going to happen.

Merk1 the fish have to be died past a certian distance. I can't remeber what it was but i think it was 50 or 100 meters from a lake. I didn't think there care throw if there your in your live well if your just going to a cleaning station.

[BobLoblaw]

I thought i post this because i bet this is whats going to happen eventually. Sundance what size of perch are u taking hopefully nothing over 8 inches. But most likely hood your only keeping that size and bigger. What will probably happen same thing like spring people will keep haversting all the big perch 6+inches this making them seem stunted. If u will wanted to stop the stanting u would take all the perch in 4-7inch range and toss the big ones back. But you probably arn't doing that so all your going to do is just remove all the bigger perch. Which will eventually end up making the lake seem stunted. I know you guys are going to spazz on me but it does'nt matter really. Just posting whats more then likely going to happen.

Merk1 the fish have to be died past a certian distance. I can't remeber what it was but i think it was 50 or 100 meters from a lake. I didn't think there care throw if there your in your live well if your just going to a cleaning station.



Dude, your parents should have tossed YOU back!!!:tongue2:

[FishorDie]

are perch good? ive never caught one

[Sundancefisher]

I thought i post this because i bet this is whats going to happen eventually. Sundance what size of perch are u taking hopefully nothing over 8 inches. But most likely hood your only keeping that size and bigger. What will probably happen same thing like spring people will keep haversting all the big perch 6+inches this making them seem stunted. If u will wanted to stop the stanting u would take all the perch in 4-7inch range and toss the big ones back. But you probably arn't doing that so all your going to do is just remove all the bigger perch. Which will eventually end up making the lake seem stunted. I know you guys are going to spazz on me but it does'nt matter really. Just posting whats more then likely going to happen.

Merk1 the fish have to be died past a certian distance. I can't remeber what it was but i think it was 50 or 100 meters from a lake. I didn't think there care throw if there your in your live well if your just going to a cleaning station.


You may be trolling but I will give you the benefit of the doubt. The regulations and the practice of ALL fishermen on Lake Sundance is to catch and kill ALL perch regardless of size. For our recent perch fishing derby we actively encouraged targeting small perch by having a small perch prize.

The BIG perch are harder to catch now because there are so many smaller perch.

The stunting is not caused by catching larger perch but rather due to the huge numbers of upcoming generations of successfully spawned year classes that flood the lake with so many individuals that nature then causes the perch to shut off growth at a smaller size. Rather than attain the 16 or maybe even 17 inches maximum size for a lake such as this the perch stop growing at about 6 inches. This means from an evolutionary and reproductive success perspective that more individuals can successfully live in the lake and still consume the limitations of food availability.

You have to understand the scope and biology behind the stunting process. You are most likely just thinking in the sense of a stocked trout lake. Wherein if you catch all the big ones...only little ones are left.

In Lake Sundance it is a conservative estimate that there are over 1 million perch in the 1 inch to 16 inch range living in the lake. For a lake that is 13.2 hectares in size...that is a lot of fish.

The reproductive success is not always the same but for Lake Sundance the perch are spawning very, very successfully. A 7-8 inch female will have about 30,000 eggs in her. Given the lack of predation...figure out even at 1 percent survival rate...how long it takes to get to 1 million perch. The perch first got into the lake illegally about 10 years ago. They probably first spawned 2 - 3 years later. Your idea of releasing all big perch back is poor simply because as the fish get bigger so does their fecundity or successful spawning ability. A 14 inch perch could have upwards of 250,000 eggs in her. That compounds the spawning success problem and puts even more individuals in the lake. Not a good thing as you can well imagine. All perch need to be killed regardless of their size.

People like fishing for good sized perch...fishing for 4 inch perch sucks though for most. Hopefully if any bucket brigade illegal perch stocking fishermen are reading this...that they change their ways and stop the practice. It helps no one.

I understand that fish and wildlife is now going to put a zero bag limit on perch for all illegally stocked populations.

Cheers

Sun

P.S. FishorDie... Perch can be fun to fish for as they can either be challenging or stupid. My best average catch rate so far is about 40 perch an hour. So far this winter my worst catch rate is 20 perch an hour. Hopefully that stays within the range. Perch are great eating as they are part of the walleye family in which walleye are also tasty. In fact a buddy said right now in place a pound of perch is selling for $15. Smaller perch while plentiful take longer to clean. I like to fillet them and make them boneless. Other people and cultures will just gut a small perch, scale them, back or fry them and then eat them from there. Some people make soup of the bones and carcass. Either way you slice them...perch are tasty and I find way...way more tasty that the trout from these stocked lakes. I find them either tasteless or muddy compare to better trout lakes.

[FishorDie]

Mmmm maybe ill give it a try

[happy perch fisher]

My logic behind leaving the bigger ones is that aleast good gentics will all be there. If there 500 small spawners for every large spawner they add up to be way more. Plus the large spawner has the good genes in him. While the little guys will probably have a mix of genes in them. I can understand what your trying to do. I just think it would be better to remove all the small ones and leave everything maybe say 9+ inches alone. Because there probably is 500 6 in perch for ever one over. Serously throw your not going to get even get close to make a difference. Unless everyone taking 250 perch and theres like 25 guys doing it every day. But goodluck throw. The thing i did'nt get is why fish and wildlife has'nt started using those perch for stocking. I know they are having a hard a time finding perch to refill lakes thats winterkilled. Unless the fish are sick or have some wierd bug or something they probably could be used for stocking. I remeber they tried to take the perch out of spring before it winterkilled to restock a bunch of lakes. But it started to winterkill when they started so they called it off. To bad throw those perch where going to lakes like hanmore and i think hasting and 1 other lake. I guess sundance is private that probably why they have'nt done it.

[Sundancefisher]

My logic behind leaving the bigger ones is that aleast good gentics will all be there. If there 500 small spawners for every large spawner they add up to be way more. Plus the large spawner has the good genes in him. While the little guys will probably have a mix of genes in them. I can understand what your trying to do. I just think it would be better to remove all the small ones and leave everything maybe say 9+ inches alone. Because there probably is 500 6 in perch for ever one over. Serously throw your not going to get even get close to make a difference. Unless everyone taking 250 perch and theres like 25 guys doing it every day. But goodluck throw. The thing i did'nt get is why fish and wildlife has'nt started using those perch for stocking. I know they are having a hard a time finding perch to refill lakes thats winterkilled. Unless the fish are sick or have some wierd bug or something they probably could be used for stocking. I remeber they tried to take the perch out of spring before it winterkilled to restock a bunch of lakes. But it started to winterkill when they started so they called it off. To bad throw those perch where going to lakes like hanmore and i think hasting and 1 other lake. I guess sundance is private that probably why they have'nt done it.

Mention the use of perch from Sundance as a perch stocking source to F&W. Tell someone to PM me and we will give them all the perch they want. Your genetic scenario unfortunately does not fly in this population case study. To go into the genetics and population dynamics is too much like University. we can save that for a bad fishing day with nothing else to talk about.

Cheers

Sun

[Sundancefisher]

Perch fishing day changed to this saturday...

[slingshotz]

P.S. FishorDie... Perch can be fun to fish for as they can either be challenging or stupid. My best average catch rate so far is about 40 perch an hour. So far this winter my worst catch rate is 20 perch an hour. Hopefully that stays within the range. Perch are great eating as they are part of the walleye family in which walleye are also tasty. In fact a buddy said right now in place a pound of perch is selling for $15. Smaller perch while plentiful take longer to clean. I like to fillet them and make them boneless. Other people and cultures will just gut a small perch, scale them, back or fry them and then eat them from there. Some people make soup of the bones and carcass. Either way you slice them...perch are tasty and I find way...way more tasty that the trout from these stocked lakes. I find them either tasteless or muddy compare to better trout lakes.

Give me a Perch anyday for eating and I'm one happy camper (burbot is a close second). What they do in Finland is smoke the entire fish after it's gutted, scales and all. The scales and skin peel off in one piece extremely easy and you don't have to waste time scaling them in the first place. That said, I do find them enjoyable to catch too :) Sat looks to be a beautiful day to be outside. good luck all.

[nicemustang]

There is a way to gut and skin them, that's the way i do it. Handy dandy and hardly anyway. Once cooked, the back bone peels right out. Save the meat on the small guys. Hard to explain but this video is pretty close. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCuulDVoHgc

[riderpride55]

Hey Sundance fisher, I also use an older aqua vu camera, I made a tripod out of a 5 gallon bucket, and a binder clip to hold the depth and angle of viewing, I have been VERY successful in recording fish behavior. I use the yellow video output on the camera, I bought a device from staples that converts that signal to a usb input for my laptop. so my laptop is doing the recording on the ice. I have posted a video on my facebook page. I am more than willing to share that with anyone. I used the video editing software that came with the converter to delete all of the dead air, and put to video to music, and it also has graphic texts

Cheers

[whitewolf]

my understanding was they were trying to get rid of the perch so all should be kept and with the smaller ones we used to just cut the heads of and gut them just like we used th do with smelts back east...hey sundance what was supposed to be stocked in the lake if anything?

[Sundancefisher]

my understanding was they were trying to get rid of the perch so all should be kept and with the smaller ones we used to just cut the heads of and gut them just like we used th do with smelts back east...hey sundance what was supposed to be stocked in the lake if anything?

The perch were stocked illegally by a couple of stupid kids about 10 years ago. The lake is stocked with rainbows although the perch out number them probably 200 to 1. I caught 2 trout in 2 days fishing...at the same time caught about 180 perch.

[whitewolf]

were they small trout....i dont know if trout are good perch eaters,i know pike and walleye enjoy them.