Perch –
You can call them perch or bluegill or sunfish. I don’t know how to tell them apart. They are the little fish that stay in the shallows and you can catch all day long or worms, hotdogs, corn, salmon eggs, grasshoppers, or sometimes even a shiny bare hook. These little guys aren’t picky eaters.
I’ve never found a body of water where they didn’t swarm your bait after a few minutes. If you get one as big as your palm, they are good eating. We cook them whole in tin foil and butter over mesquite coals. Their flaky white meat tastes like bass or crappie. When everything else is fishing slow around a big ranch pond and it’s a 100 degrees, the perch will still be biting. I’ve caught dozens of them with my flyrod and small nymph pulled through the water. The pheasant tail beadhead is my personal favorite.
They make good live bait for yellow catfish too, or small ones for large bass. However you use them, perch make fishing fun.
