PEEPING DEEP...Electronics locate Mendota perch in 70 foot depths.
By Dick Ellis
January 17, 2013 Reader Note: This perch story on Lake Mendota took place in 2004. As always, make sure of regulations if you go including bag limits. Contact D&S Bait and Tackle in Madison at 1-608-241-4225 for fishing conditions, or directions to angler access points on Lake Mendota and other Madison area lakes. Contacted January 17, 2013, D&S owner Gene Dill said that ice conditions on Mendota are not yet ready for anglers, but he expects a good perch season based on last year’s open water action. “They won’t be as big as we’ve seen them, but we’re expecting to see a lot of perch in the nine-inch class.”
Bruce Keldahl kneels on the ice of Lake Mendota, sends the jig south on the “hanger-rig” express through the augured hole and 70 feet of water, then watches the screen of his electronics as intensely as the rest of us might have watched a 4th and 26 the Sunday before. Keldahl has only assumed the position of the ice angler for ten minutes, but already four perch lay on the snow-less hardwater of Madison.
Mendota has had safe ice for about a week, and this endless piece of glass would make the perfect, 9,842 acre skating rink. Todd Passini of Middleton, in fact, pulls two sleds laden with ice fishing gear on hockey skates through a shanty town of 100 anglers or more one-half mile from the nearest shore.
Keldahl is seeking his fifth straight day with a Mendota limit of 25 perch up to 12 inches in length. But he tolerates the intrusion and questions of a reporter with a camera waiting for perch number five to knock somewhere far below.
Bruce Keldahl of Madison kneels on the ice of Lake Mendota and adds to his growing pile of perch. Keldahl caught limits of 25 perch to 12 inches in length four consecutive days last week from 70 feet of water. Note the vexilar on the ice called by anglers imperative to finding the deep water fish.
Within a minute, Keldahl watches as the blips marking his bait and another perch collide on the screen. The ultralight rod bends as the fish takes the meal and then takes the long ride up to join the growing pile.
“I got a limit Sunday through Wednesday and I couldn’t come out Thursday,” he said. “They’ve been real nice fish, averaging nine or 10 inches. There are a few six and seven inches and a few 12 inches. But you don’t have to wait long for a hit.”
The road to Mendota January 16 actually begins on the 2,000 acre, shallower Waubesa with Gene Dellinger, owner of D&S Bait and Tackle. In the first five minutes in a heated shack talking Madison area options for the perch angler, Dellinger catches a half-dozen fish in the eight inch class before the school temporarily disappears.
With his reflection on the snow-less Lake Mendota ice, Robert Hamann of Milwaukee waits for another deep water perch to take the bait.
Dellinger is waiting for ice conditions on the deeper Mendota to improve prior to moving his operation of shacks, equipment and sled transportation for interested anglers to that lake and its proven potential for significantly larger perch. He intends to make the move the week of January 19.
“This is the first year that we’re on Waubesa,” he said. “Normally we just hang on and wait for Mendota to freeze-up. Perch fishing there is cyclical and based on the success of the hatches and the size of the different year classes of perch. Last year was tough. Mendota is in kind of a rebuilding cycle so this year we were taking a wait and see approach and with only four inches of ice over there anyway, watching the early success. If fishing was going to be poor, I wanted to up the ante as far as success goes. I’d rather have people renting shacks on a lake where they can catch a lot of fish.”
On Waubesa, he said, average eight-inch perch are most often bottom-holding at 30 feet. On Mendota the average fish is nine or ten inches with 12 inch perch fairly common. Mendota fish are routinely found in 70 feet of water, but suspended anywhere in the water column from just under the ice to just off the bottom.
Because of the vastness of the lake and depth of the water, a sensitive vexilar or equivalent electronic locator, is critical on Mendota, enabling the angler to see the bait in relation to the fish. Dellinger’s jigs, most often a rat finkie in glow color, black or purple, are dressed with a spike and used with four-pound test line on ultralight spinning rods. To avoid line tangle, the light jigs are escorted to the depths by a long metal sinker commonly referred to as pencil sinkers, hanger rigs, or Mendota sinkers.
The forage base of perch found in the Madison area, he said, is also different than the primary food of perch found in other regions. Although they will take minnows here, microorganisms known commonly as water lice serve as the primary food source.
”It means you have to fish for them differently and makes the bite a lot more subtle,” he said. “Perch foraging on minnows often hit a lot harder. On Mendota, most guys will stay in a shack. The more successful angler will run and gun. It depends on the perch population, but as a rule if there are good numbers of fish you can stay in the shack and stay on the fish. When they are biting over there, the fishing pressure is extreme.”
Soon, that point was emphasized on the shore of Mendota. A “creeper” highway, chips in the ice made by countless anglers over a week wearing special strap-on cleats to keep from falling, stretched on toward the shanty town. Governor Nelson State Park on Mendota’s north side and Governor’s Island are two public access points.
Of 15 perch taken January 19 from deep water on Lake Mendota by Jason Howell of Blanchardville in Lafayette County, the last two were more than 12 inches. Good ice and good fishing over 70 feet of water is calling anglers to the near 10,000 acre Madison lake.
Near shore, John Guld of Jefferson and Erv Stuntebeck of Marshall are just leaving Mendota with nine and 13 perch in their pails, respectively, to eleven inches. At the half-way point of the half-mile journey to the growing ice community, Jason Howell of Blancardville in Lafayette County shows his catch of 15 fish. And a good natured Jeff Cizek of Madison is bringing in the dreaded skunk. The last two perch of the day for Howell were fat 12 and 12-1/2 inches, the kind of fish that will call these anglers back.
John Guld of Jefferson leaves Lake Mendota Friday afternoon with nine nice perch. Ice recently became safe on the big lake and perch to 12 inches in length are being caught in 70 feet of water.
“Last year was bad, but now it’s picking up again,” he said. “I just hope it doesn’t fizzle out.”
Finally in shanty town, I watch Keldahl add to his growing perch-pile, watch Passini skate to his spot of choice, and watch and talk with many other other ice men wallowing in a good Mendota perch bite. Before leaving, I find Robert Hamann of Milwaukee working the Mendota depths on the edge of Shanty town, catching perch, and catching yet another version of the Wisconsin natural high.
“This is just great fun, relaxing, and a good way to spend some free time,” he said. “The perch are good eating too. This state offers so much, but there are just too many people who stay in the house during the winter months. Wisconsin has a lot to offer if you just prepare for it. Bundle up….and enjoy.”