I hit Coffin Lake from around 11 a.m. till 4 hoping to catch some of the large perch that are rumored to be there. The ice was thick (8-10 inches) but was covered with water and about 18 inches of snow on top of that. So it was difficult drilling holes in it. I started with a white and green needlefish with a hot pink jig tipped with mealworm suspended below it. I worked the water column from bottom to top but had no luck with that. I switched over to a black lead head jig with yellow eyes tipped with mealworm and power maggots. I started catching fish on that, but not perch, instead I was catching brook trout. I eventually switched over to a silver and red swedish pimple tipped with power maggots and mealworms but continued to catch only brook trout. I must have caught 20 ranging in size between 8 and 14 inches. After about the first ten I started keeping them because I suspected I wasn't going to catch any perch. I ended up bringing home a couple of the larger for dinner. I never did catch any perch or anything else though I know they are in there because when I was cleaning the trout, they had baby perch in their stomaches. Anyway, if anyone knows a good way of keeping the trout off when targeting perch please let me know.

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