Good evening friends... For some reason, I have decided that sleep was not that essential and I have been leaving the house about 4:30 in order to be with Richie at Slez bait for minnows at 5 AM. Then heading over to Portage, the launch is essentially dead at that hour and a nice ride about 20 minutes east puts me in front of the state park pavilion. I had heard that the fish were in 35' or water so I meandered to 35' of water and the Garmin showed herds of something near the bottom. Some big herds and some not so big herds were seen and yesterday, it was pretty darn windy out of the southwest. So, I put the Terrova down and headed into the wind keeping just enough speed to pretty well stay in place and had no problem getting 15 perch by 8 AM. I had a few 13" fish and a few dinks but kept nothing under 11". Yesterday inspired me to call an old buddy and this morning, we repeated the routine in essentially the same location. He seemed concerned that I failed to mark a waypoint from yesterday's fishing. I told him that I came back to 35' of water and lined up with the state park and they may be here. First drop this morning was a double and he had a single and we were on our way. By 9 AM, we had 30 beautiful healthy perch with the smallest at 11". We had a perfect morning with light breeze and slight overcast sky and just good conversation. It also helped that I was catching just a few more than he was so I got to control most of the trash talking... Please just get out and enjoy this resource. Our launch in Portage is good and the fish are around. The weather appears to be consistent for the next 10 days or so and maybe these perch will hang around. As far as getting out early, it is kind of my nature but I have also realized that a mid day nap, whether you intended to take that nap or not, is not such a bad deal.
