How to fish for Perch - Perch Fishing Tips

“Perch feed on perch,” is an old maxim; the perch being the only one of all fresh-water fish that feeds on its own kind. His excuse is a prodigious appetite, like that of Saturn, who ate his own offspring.
Not withstanding this wicked propensity, the perch is a beautiful fish, the back and part of the sides being a deep green, marked with broad black bars, pointing downwards; the spaces between are golden, the belly white, and the fins tinged with scarlet.
They vary greatly in size. The largest perch we ever caught weighed three pounds twelve ounces, and was taken with a roach bait near Richmond.
Their general length is about ten or twelve inches.

Perch

Perch are found in ponds and in clear rivers with pebbly, clayey, or sandy bottoms. They are fond of water moderately deep, and frequent holes near to gentle streams where there is an eddy, the hollows under banks, among weeds and roots of trees, piles of bridges, or in ponds which are fed by a brook or rivulet.
The perch is a bold biter in the summer, but scarcely ever in the winter.
In the middle of a warm sunshiny day, you are sure to have him with a proper bait. In the winter he bites best in large quiet eddies, to which he retreats after the first heavy flood.

The baits for perch are various, as well as the manner of using them. Of worms, the best are brandlings, and red dunghill-worms, well scoured.
The hook may be varied from No. 2 to 6, being well whipped to a strong silkworm gut, with a shot or two a foot from it. Put the point of the hook in at the head of the worm, out again a little lower than the middle, pushing it above the shank of the hook upon the gut; then put the point of the hook into the worm again the reverse way, and draw the head part down so as to cover the hook entirely.
This is the most enticing method that can be adopted in worm-fishing. Use a small cork float to keep the bait at six or twelve inches from the bottom, or sometimes about mid-water. In angling near the bottom, raise the bait very frequently from thence almost to the surface, letting it gradually fall again.
Should a good shoal be met with, they are so greedy that sometimes they may be all caught.
Other baits for perch are cadbait and gentles; but the best and most enticing bait is a live minnow. If you find the fish shy, try not long in one spot. In baiting your hook with the minnow, fix your hook through his upper lip, and use a small reel with your rod. Your hook should be No. 5, fastened to a link of gut.


Excerpt from the book:
EVERY BOY’S BOOK: A COMPLETE ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF SPORTS AND AMUSEMENTS.
EDITED BY EDMUND ROUTLEDGE.
With more than Six Hundred Illustrations
FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS.
LONDON: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,
THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE.
NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET.
1869.