When you fish for perch either yellow or white you want to make sure you are fishing with the proper perch hook size. Perch by nature have small mouths and because of this, you will want to make sure you scale down your tackle in order to get the proper hook set. There are many different types of hooks and jig sizes that will work well for both live and artificial baits.
What is the ideal perch hook size? The best size hook for perch is #4 or #6 hooks for both yellow and white perch. These hooks even on light tackle will be perfect for catching most size perch and even larger perch when they are around.
Why you need to pay attention to hook size when perch fishing
You should pay close attention to the species you are targeting and part of this is knowing the fish characterizes.
Perch, for example, have small mouths, and fishing with larger hooks will result in far fewer hookups, not to mention if you use minnows with hooks that are too large they will not look natural and bites can be far and in-between.
Because of this, you should be fishing smaller hooks to increase hookup ratios. Smaller hooks are also typically easier to penetrate the perch’s mouth than thicker larger hooks. This helps when using lighter lines.
Here are some common hook sizes for perch:
- #6 size hooks (Octopus hooks) (Owner Mosquito hooks)
- #8 size hooks (Octopus hooks) (Owner Mosquito hooks)
- #2 long shank gold hooks
- True turn #8 wire minnow hooks
- Small circle hooks: These are great for perch that will eat and not move much resulting in deeply swallowed j style hooks if you are not paying attention. Circle hooks can help with not gut hooking this fish.
What types of hooks should you use when fishing for perch?
J hooks: J hooks with a longer shank can really work well when you scale the size down for perch. These types of hooks work great for live minnows or dead minnows or other live baits like worms. The disadvantage is you can gut hook perch easier if you are not paying attention to bites. Perch bites can be subtle especially in winter.
Circle hooks: Circle hooks can really lower the gut hook rate as they are designed to hook a fish in the corner of the mouth without having to set the hook. With circle hooks, you should want to reel until you get tight on the fish. Setting the hook will almost always result in no hookups. Circles hooks can slide from deep into a fish’s mouth and hook the fish in the corner of the mouth by design.
What jig size should you use when targeting perch?
jig heads tipped with live or dead bait can be deadly for white or yellow perch. Jigs with soft small plastics are also very productive when fished with the proper size jig head.
When fishing for pech look for jig head sizes that are 1/16-ounce in weight as they are a size that most perch will comfortably eat.
Although depending on the depth and or current you may need a heaver-size jig head. In those cases, you can use 1/8 or 1/32 ounce jig size.
Do hook colors matter when targeting perch?
Hook color in our opinion comes down to angler preference and what he or she feels most confident in. Some anglers wear red color hooks while others will only use black hooks. The color of hooks should be experimented with to see what gets a bit more than others. But we feel colors on the hook are not a huge swing one way or another.
Crankbait hook size
when open water is being fished crankbaits can be great at covering water and perch will certainly eat a crankbait when it’s presented to them.
Again, perch have small mouths with very small grit-like teeth so traditional large crankbaits you may throw for largemouth bass and larger fish will not get the hookups. You will need to fish micro crankbaits. These are much smaller crankbaits and are the size the will produce hookups for perch.
Final thoughts
Perch hook size matters because both yellow and white perch have small mouths and hooks need to be small enough to get bit and then be small and sharp enough to hook the perch. Use hook sizes that we mention above and light and small jig heads that will allow for easy hooking when the perch eats.
Using hooks that are too large will result in fewer hookups and a lot of bait that gets ripped off the hooks with not much success. hook colors are not as crucial to us but red and black are something to keep in mind and experiment with.
Choosing the right perch hook size can dramatically increase hook-up ratios when you choose the right size.