Southern New England Outdoor and Nature Site: Finding White Perch on Memory Lane

Today I went fishing in the hopes of finding an old favorite. I could not waste this absolutely gorgeous eighty degree fall day. I headed out onto Norton Reservoir armed with my trout rod, small jigs and small shad bodies. As an adult, when I fished everyday, if I went through a slump with big fish (Carp, Largemouth Bass or Stripers) I'd go to Norton Reservoir and catch thirty or more fish and get my confidence back.

When I was young we would stay at a cabin an hour from Acadia National Park in Maine. The cabin was on a lake that was nine miles long named Toddy Pond. The pond was full of White Perch. We could catch them in "Deep Hole" from the boat during the day and they would come into shore almost every night. I'd catch them along with Fallfish and Eels from the dock until I couldn't see. More than any other fish, I have fond, and somewhat complicated, White Perch memories from my childhood.

We would stay at this cabin for two weeks in August every year. My parents, myself, my brother, and my parent's best friend Art (we called him Beezy because he got into a fight with a hive of bees as a kid and the nickname stuck) would go. I was addicted to fishing. I'd spend almost every moment in the canoe or boat fishing. My parents and Beezy loved playing cards. They played high-low-Jack and they played partners. I never got into it despite being fairly good at the game. This left my brother who is three years younger than me to be someone's partner. Many nights I'd have my mom annoyed at me that I didn't want to play. But oh well, there were fish to catch.

After many years of catching White Perch in Maine we put the boat into Norton Reservoir. It was loaded with perch and I would keep a few to eat. Sidenote- do not eat fish out of Norton Reservoir. It is polluted. Raw sewerage used to be dumped in there. They were stunted and unlike in Maine where I'd occasionally catch one thirteen inches, the Norton ones were never bigger than eight inches. In one of our first encounters with these fish I kept a few and put them in the net which we left in the water. I probably had eight or ten. My mom reeled in what she thought was a log until she went to pull it out of the water. The "log" was a monster bass. Easily eight pounds! Instead of waiting for me to try to lip it or for us to empty the contents of the net she tried to lift it out of the water snapping her line. She handled the loss well, but blamed me for having the net full of fish. Once grown and with a few big fish under my belt I realized this was her fault not mine. Who tries to lift a giant bass out of the water with their little freshwater rod?

After years of only catching White Perch in Maine and Norton Reservoir my parents bought the boat off of Beezy and I could keep it docked on Falls Pond at a family friend's house. The walk to his house was about ninety seconds. I lived out there. I was on the water almost every day. I learned how to bass fish out there and how to use lures. For my eighth grade graduation gift I was offered a small family party or fifty dollar gift. I bought fifty dollars worth of lures from Bass Pro Shops that were mail order at the time. We still went up to Maine the difference was we were trailering the boat instead of Beezy.

When I was about fifteen, the day after we came home from our annual Maine vacation, I was talking to a fishermen that was coming in off of Falls Pond. I asked him what he caught and he told me a few bass and White Perch. I'd fished Falls Pond my whole life and I had never caught a White Perch. I was sure he didn't know the true identity of what he caught. However, I was also secretly excited that I might have perch in the pond. Sure enough the next day when I got my boat back int the water I caught my first ever Falls Pond White Perch. I'd caught hundreds of fish from Falls Pond, how I had never caught a White Perch until that day is mathematically impossible.

A couple weeks later I caught a Falls Pond White Perch that was about fifteen inches. This is huge for a freshwater White Perch. I took it home and had it weighed at a local tackle shop. It was big enough to qualify for a state pin. Later that week as I was reading the outdoor column, which I read religiously, I read my name in the paper. There was a paragraph with my name and my catch. We bought multiple copies that afternoon.

My last White Perch memory isn't about catching one. Fast forward twenty years I was fishing in Providence almost every winter night when the weather was warm enough. There had been a lot of sea-run White Perch around but I hadn't hooked up with one (Dave, if you are reading this, you probably already know where I'm going with this). The fish were much bigger than the stunted perch normally caught in lakes. I was determined to catch one so I left my striper gear in the car and used my trout rod. I put on a small jig with a small shad body. I didn't mind that I wouldn't catch any stripers with this gear, I really wanted to catch a White Perch. It was a rainy but warm, for a winter night. Dave had gotten there before me and had caught a few stripers that night. After only a couple minutes I hooked up but it was definitely not a perch. My medium-light freshwater rod bent over.

When my drag started screaming Dave said, and I quote, "the fish are running big tonight". He was right. I had an epic battle on my hands. While I was fighting this big fish on six pound line Dave hooked up also. It took me twenty minutes to get the fish in but somehow landed a thirty one inch striper. Dave unhooked his fish and we set up my small camera on a timer and somehow it took a magical photo. The photo is in the top right hand corner of the blog. It has been featured in magazines twice. It is hanging on my wall. It is, by far, my favorite fishing photo of my life. While, this story isn't about White Perch, it is because I was chasing them.

A good sized freshwater White Perch is a foot long, and a fifteen inch fish will make the paper if you are a kid. Since my childhood I've caught tons of Stripers that could eat a White Perch and still be hungry. I've gotten close to the elusive thirty pound carp. But every now and then, I go back. When an eight inch perch comes out of the water it reminds me of my childhood every time. All of these memories come back. Without White Perch my Maine vacations would not have been nearly as fun. I don't know what I would have done with those hundreds of hours I spent on Toddy Pond drowning worms and catching perch. Even worse, the evenings would have been spent playing cards!