Both places and everywhere in between. One things for sure, they won't be far from a really good food source. Whether that is a concentration of small minnows over a large main basin transition area or flat or up in the weeds eating scuds and shrimp. This time of year I actually like starting deep and working back to the first drop off area and then shallower from there if unsuccessful finding what I'm looking for. I check for food sources with my camera. I'm looking for Shiners and small Walleye, insect life etc. The area needs to look alive for me. I'm looking for sand to mud, stones to sand, , rock piles or boulders, and deep weeds mostly. Sometimes it's a meat bite, often times it's a bug bite. I definitely use a camera in deep water even at reduced visibility, reason being they can suffer barotrauma from 35 ft deep or more so I pull it away from small fish and only let the ones I intend to keep eat it. Not a factor in the shallows but they aren't always there, they will move in and out of shallows if food is available. Stealth is required, love my electric auger!!!! Don't be afraid to go deep for them though, there are lakes in other regions where you can catch Perch in over 50 ft of water. They can use the whole lake and are constantly roaming around and grazing like cattle. They can be anywhere. They say Musky are the fish of a thousand casts. Well, true Jumbo Perch can sometimes be the fish of a hundred holes lol! Other times you just happen to land right in top of them and it's game on for hours! Most of the time you have to hunt them, other times you can hunker down and they end up finding you. The rewards are very sweet when it all comes together, the journey never ends but don't worry there are probably support groups out there now for highly addicted Perch Fisherman like me lol. Good luck on yours!
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