Located along the Minnesota- South Dakota border, Big Stone Lake has a well-deserved reputation as one the best walleye lakes available to anglers in the western part of the state. But Big Stone also is known for producing perch, although its status as a go-to perch destination usually doesn’t measure up to lakes such as Winnibigoshish, Leech, Cass or even — those touted as some of Minnesota’s premier jumbo perch factories.
That might be changing. There’s something unique taking place in Big Stone Lake with its perch population, both in size and numbers.
The bite has been so good, one could make the argument that Big Stone is now the best perch fishing lake on the map.
Norm Haukos is the area fisheries supervisor with the Department of Natural Resources in Ortonville and he says Big Stone has always been a “relatively” good perch lake.
But the past couple of years have provided excellent fishing, which has developed into an even better bite so far this winter.
‘As good as it gets’
“There aren’t many lakes in the southern half of the state that would compare, right now, to Big Stone for perch,” he said. “Historically, this is as good as it gets.”
Perch reproduction in Big Stone has been excellent over the past five years.
According to Haukos, there were back-to-back-to-back recruitment years that produced perch numbers never seen in the lake.
Those three-year-old perch are now 10 to 11 inches in length, with some bigger fish in the mix.
To better understand the current perch population in the fishery and make some type of comparison, Haukos pointed to Leech Lake, one of the more traditional perch destinations in the state. Read the rest of this very nice ice article here on sctimes.com
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