The rigging for big water perch is fairly simple, and there are many pre-made rigs or spreaders on the market today. Generally they have only two hooks, but recently the law changed on how many hooks you where allowed to fish with on one line. Now that three hooks are allowed some companies have begun to offer three hooks rigs. Perch rigs come in two basic forms, vertical and horizontal; these are made from two different materials: monofilament or wire, or a combination of the two.

Mono Rigs only come in the vertical form most are made with heavy monofilament but some use a mono main line and wire arms that stick out to the sides. On those wire arms you place a snelled hook. On the pure mono version short lengths of stiff mono is crimped to the main line. Above the hooks beads in 5mm to 6mm or small flicker blades are placed to act has a form of extra attraction.

Wire Rigs

Wire perch rigs are found in both vertical and horizontal. The horizontal rigs are also know has a half moon spreaders, due to their shape. At the end of each arm is a hook with a locking spring. On this hook is where you place a snelled hook. Some half moon spreaders also have weights molded around the center of the wire, others have a snap swivel so you can attach both your line and your weight.

The vertical form of wire spreaders use both rigid wire and 7 strand wire. Off that vertical piece of wire stiff wire arms are placed and locked in place using crimps. Just like on the half moon spreaders you place snelled hooks on these as well.

Lures

Perch rigs are not the only way to go though. Maybe you only want to fish with one hook, or maybe you just don’t want to deal with live minnows. There are some artificial lures that are worth noting. One that is high on my list are Jigging Spoons. Two jigging spoons that get my nod are the Buckshot spoon from Northland and the Hali spoon. Both are very popular during the hard water months but many people over look these during the soft water season.

Another great producer for me is the soft plastic kind. Again, this is coming from the ice fishing side of my bag of tricks the Little Atom Nuggies. The nuggie was developed out of request from ice anglers that wanted a small tail off of a jenson egg. I rig this on a plain hook tied on to the main line like you would when you’re drop shotting for bass. I let the waves impart the action for me into these action packed plastics.

Boat Control

When you saw “boat control” in the title you might have said to yourself, what is so hard to figure out here you just to throw out an anchor and start fishing. But there are a few little tricks that you can do to put perch in the boat quicker.

The number one tip I can give you is to anchor off a back corner of the boat when the conditions allow for your boat. Doing this reduces boat swing greatly, but as a warning be careful when doing this. If you do this in too rough of seas it is very easy to take a wave over the back of the boat which would make for a very bad day. Another bonus of doing this is that you seem to have to use less rope to get the anchor to bite in.

Now for those conditions when you can’t anchor off the back there is something you can do to reduce boat swing. By throwing a drift sock or sea anchor straight out the back of the boat it will help to hold your boat straight.

Now I have mentioned boat swing a few times now. Boat swing is a bad thing because it moves you in and out of the school and affects your ability to incite a focused feeding frenzy within the school of perch you’re fishing.

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