Much like their panfish cousins, bluegills and crappies, yellow perch have saved many a fishing day by cooperating when flashier game fish such as walleyes, bass, trout and salmon turn a blind eye to anglers’ efforts. From early spring through late autumn, active schools and individual perch willing to bite can usually be located. Depending on the time of season, you may be dunking fathead minnows in two feet of water in April or sending emerald shiners and jigs plummeting to depths of 40 feet or more in August to score a mess of “seven stripers,” as they are referred to in some regions, for the dinner table.

One of the first fishing “tricks” I learned as a kid has, in the decades since, entertained fellow anglers and netted me some fine catches from both fresh and salt water and yellow perch in particular. That’s one of the joys of traveling to fish: discovering local tactics that can be learned and put into practice back at home – sometimes with startling results.

For example, after spending several years living and fishing in the Florida Keys, one of the angling tactics I brought back to the Midwest was chumming. In its simplest form, chumming is introducing food into the water that will draw baitfish and predators to the area around the boat to spark a feeding frenzy. In the Keys we used bags or boxes of frozen commercial chum containing ground fish and oils that created a slick and a cloud of food particles swept down current with the tide as the fragrant chunks thawed from chum bags hung over the transom.

In inland lakes, some anglers use a can of cat food punched with holes and tied to the anchor when fishing for yellow perch. Chumming works best for schooling fish species in current, but now you probably have some ideas in mind for your local waters and it’s worth a try. Some crappie and yellow perch anglers have been known to fill a large glass jar with water and minnows, tethering it with a stout line and sinking it below the boat to attract fish. They say any hooked minnow dropped in the vicinity of the trapped specimens stands nary a chance among the frustrated panfish that are attracted to the underwater show.

Perch anglers often use spreader rigs or crappie offering two or more baits to be presented at once. This young angler had great luck using emerald shiners on a perch spreader.

While most perchers preach stealth when approaching a fishing spot from upwind, often cutting their engines on the approach and drifting silently with the breeze before quietly dropping anchor hand-over-fist. Others use quite the opposite approach. Some charter captains on the Great Lakes will keep their engines running when anchored over schools of yellow perch. They argue that the sound and vibration both attracts and keeps the fish below the boat – and in range of their customers who drop minnow-baited, multi-hook perch spreaders vertically into the depths. Turning off the boat’s engine often leads to the school moving, apparently in search of louder waters, say such skippers. In a related tactic he uses with success on inland lakes, one veteran “perch jerker” I know places a transistor radio face down on the floor of his aluminum boat and cranks up the sound to keep the perch below in place and active.

Live bait anglers in both fresh and salt water will often clip a fin off a baitfish before offering it to the depths. They realize that the predator species they target are drawn to dine on injured baitfish which are easier to catch, and the action of a fin-clipped fish mimics an easy meal. That said, I’ve tried this with emerald shiners and didn’t notice a significant uptick in my perch catching.

As for the fishing trick I learned as a kid in fresh water that has worked well in the salt, it can help keep you in the strike zone of schooling fish such as yellow perch, as well as crappies and white bass, that often roam and suspend over open waters this time of year. You take a partially inflated party balloon and attach it to a length of line equal to the depth at which the fish was caught to which a hook is tied at the working end. Keep the balloon rig handy until the bite slows and someone aboard catches a perch, which is unhooked from the fishing line and re-hooked to the line that trails the balloon. The so-tethered fish is then placed back in the water to re-join its finned brethren below – trailing a high-vis marker floating on the surface that needs only be followed by boat to allow the anglers to remain over the school. Of course, when the fishing is over you retrieve the marker, gently unhook the golden “bell cow,” and release the perch back in its home water as a reward for a job well done.

The traditional perch jerking tactic calls for a two-hook perch spreader or crappie rig baited with shiners and weighted with a bank or dipsy sinker heavy enough to keep the line vertical in the water column and the bait just off the bottom. Braided line works best, for if the perch are there and eating, you’ll want to feel a tap-tap on the line signaling a fish has engulfed a minnow and it’s time to reel in and see what you have hooked. If you’re lucky, you’ll score a double-header and hook two of the uber-competitive perch at once. With yellow perch eating a variety of foods, including invertebrates, some anglers are finding the perch relating less to the bottom and feeding higher in the water column than where they are traditionally found down near the mud. So, monitor your fishfinder and don’t be afraid to bring the minnow-tipped spreader and rigs up to the level of the fish that appear on the screen, and prepare to mine some late-summer gold.