Dennis Anderson: Perch as a priority

LAKE WINNIBIGOSHISH -- That a winter business, and a good one, could be built around perch -- perch! -- only underscores what a great country this is.

Twenty-eight miles of icy road is what resort owner Rick Leonhardt plows every other day or so for fishermen who often drive hundreds of miles to fish for perch on this giant northern Minnesota lake.

Thursday afternoon, a bitter northwest wind swirled across Winnie's snow-packed surface as Leonhardt and I bounced across the frozen lake in his Jeep about 6 miles from High Banks Resort, which he and his wife, Kim, own.

Downshifting, then stomping on the accelerator, Leonhardt angled us yonder farther still, toward where the blue sky met the white lake, with a sliver of distant shoreline sandwiched between.

Behind us in his pickup was Department of Natural Resources large lake specialist Gerry Albert of Grand Rapids, Minn. An avid angler, summer and winter, Albert is on Winnie regularly, usually for work, sometimes for play.

We were using a handheld global positioning system to guide us to a spot suspected to harbor perch. Nearby were other anglers, most from Wisconsin, a state that breeds perch lovers and Packer lovers in nearly equal number.

"A lot of our guests are from Wisconsin," Leonhardt said. "They love their perch, and they'll drive a long way to fish for them."

Winnie, of course, has other fish. It's a haven for walleyes, and the northern pike population is good. But those species receive scant attention in the cold months, when small jigs are baited with minnows and dropped to the bottom.

In search of perch.

Stopping a moment to ponder anew the GPS, Leonhardt and Albert soon pointed toward the sun. Off, then, we bounced a few hundred more yards, the Jeep's oversized tires begging for traction as it trailblazed a path through the snow.

It was fitting that the day was ornery cold. All winter it's been like that, Leonhardt said. "And the wind has blown a lot," he added.

When we reached our hoped-for hotspot, we quickly augered a trio of holes through the ice. Albert didn't have an extension on his big drill. But he'll soon need one if cold weather hangs on a few more days.

To reach water, he buried every inch of his ice-biting drill, until its engine was nearly bouncing off the lake's frozen surface.

It wasn't long before we were tricking meal-size perch into munching our hook-impaled fatheads and shiners.

• • •

How large the original Lake Winnibigoshish was is anyone's guess. A dam was built as early as the 1920s across the lake's outlet, the Mississippi River, forging an expansion of the lake toward its present size of 58,544 surface acres -- about the fifth-largest lake in the state.

Winnie likely always was a perch haven. Perch thrive in lakes where shoreline emergent vegetation is bountiful, and Winnie is just such a lake.

So many perch have inhabited the lake over the years that at one time no limit was imposed on the number that anglers could keep. Later the limit was changed to 100 daily and in possession.

But even that number proved too restrictive for a relative handful of anglers, and some notable enforcement busts -- mostly of nonresidents -- were made a couple of decades back of anglers who caught and kept hundreds of perch.

Then in 2000 a limit of 20 daily and 50 in possession was imposed on Winnie's perch -- a restriction that was tightened slightly more in 2001, when the possession limit was reduced to 40.

"That hurt business some among Wisconsin fishermen," Leonhardt said. "We get guys who drive up here from as far away as Madison or Milwaukee. They love perch. But some of them want to be able to keep more than 20."

That said, Leonhardt's resort seems not to go begging for business. Again this weekend all of his cabins are rented, with some of his anglers staying on the lake in sleeper fishing shacks.

Thursday, I caught the first fish. Then Albert, testing the waters outside our shelter, landed a second.

Action picked up from there, with Leonhardt proving himself an expert perch angler, fooling one fish after another.

"Depending where you are on the lake, perch can be more or less abundant," Albert said. "Some guys fish as deep as 25 or 30 feet down in winter. But for the most part, the best fishing occurs in 17 to 20 feet of water."

We were a little deeper than that, about 24 feet, on Thursday. Fish weren't jumping through our holes. But action was consistent.

Soon we had five perch on the ice. Then 10. Then 15.

"The bite started a little slow this winter," Albert said. "Then it picked up and has been fairly consistent in recent weeks."

Often, winter anglers on Winnie have to move from spot to spot before they find enough perch to keep the bite consistent. Most everyone employs depth finders of one brand or another. Some even use underwater cameras.

After two recent year classes -- 2000 and 2002 -- of Winnie's perch came up short, the lake's perch population is now rebuilding,

"We're not sure why recruitment wasn't as good in those years," Albert said.

• • •

With a maximum depth of only 65 feet, Winnie takes the shape of a big, fertile fish bowl.

Its 17-26-inch protected slot for walleyes has seemed to help the lake's population of that fish, and walleye fishing on the big lake is expected to be good again this summer, Albert said.

Northern pike in the lake once averaged about 5 pounds. Now it's about 3 pounds. But the size of the lake's northerns is inching up, making Winnie one of the state's premier pike factories.

But fishing for walleyes and northerns seemed a thousand warm days away Thursday afternoon. As the sun drew itself toward the horizon, the temperature also fell.

A low of 20 degrees below zero was predicted Thursday night.

We reeled in our lines a final time. When we did, we had 20 or more good perch on the ice, catching them over the middle part of a very cold afternoon.

"Pretty good fishing," I said.

Later, back at Leonhardt's resort, gathered at the bar and around the pool table, a scrum of Wisconsin anglers from the Green Bay area seemed happy enough.

Sure, Brett Favre had retired. But the perch bite was pretty good. And one of the visiting anglers had ordered a round of beer.

Better still, another Badger State angler had broken out a voluminous storehouse of hot-peppered pickles.

"Made them myself," said Dale Roberts of New London, Wis., popping one into his mouth.

Then another.

"Want one?" he asked, grinning.

So it went.

Dennis Anderson is at danderson@tartribune.com