Newbie

[hulagrub]

I have never fished for perch from boat on Lake Michigan. I have a 16' Alumacraft. I am not to keen on going "out" into open water for perch. So...where could I go that is somewhat protected from big waves? I have launched at 95th before and this area looked promising. I hope to get out this weekend.

thanks in advance

[guppy]

You sound like me a few years ago! Lake Michigan scared the crap out of me for a while too (it still does, just not as much). You have to learn to trust your instincts and pay attention to more than one weather forecast. When you plan on going out just check the wind and wave forecasts. If we have a coulple of days of strong winds from the North or East our end of the lake is going to be rough. I usually never go out unless the winds are going to stay under 15 mph out of any direction (I have a 16ft Smoker Craft). Any winds out of the South and West are usually good.

Now on to the perch! Sometimes the schools can be tricky to find you have to have a good fishfinder and learn to read it. Any time between now and Dec the perch will be in around 50 feet of water. A ton of boats (including myself) will be seaching for those schools near the Gary light house for the better part of the next month. The lighthouse is between pastrick marinia (East Chicago) and Burns ditch (Portage marnia). These are the websites I use to check the winds and waves before I go out.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/greatlakes/?c=map&l=lm&p=a&m=wh

http://www.fishweather.com/windandwhere ... ast+Graphs

http://www.weather.com/outlook/recreati ... eId=LMZ744

good luck!

[PoorBoy]

Shouldbefishing-What size boat do you have? Trying to Perch fish in 5ftrs is crazy. I think most people would have turned around and put the boat back on the trailer. I'm sure you caught a livewell full of fish that day though.

It's very important that you have a good weather report, and one that gives you an approximate time of a wind switch. I myself prefer weatherbug which seems to be the most accurate website with a realtime wind direction.

Poorboy