Fish-Hawk.Net

Big Daddy D here with a problem that hopefully someone can answer.
Sunday afternoon Jan 18 I had an opportunity to try ice fishing on Mississippi lake with some friends who live on the lake.
I drove on at a friends private launch off 10th line. we stayed far south from the main city set up, and set up our holes in 10' water and 20" ice.
We caught a good number of Perch and nothing else, 6 of the Perch where above 12" and where kept.

At Home when I cleaned the fish all 6 where full of worms. Is this common on the Mississippi?
I normally fish Rideau and maybe 1 out of 10 will have a worm.

Should I have been fishing deeper?

Find that fish from shallow,warm water have more of a tendency to have "Worms". There appear to be two types.One looks like meat "Shot" with black pepper,other actually will move when poked in meat. According to MNR neither pose a health hazard to us Humans,but,man they sure look ugly!Usually give these pieces to guests after cooking!My Bad!!

I caught a bunch of perch in Mississippi River a couple years ago, took them home and cleaned them, they were full of little white worms. Just unappetizing, but not harmful apparently. These were from the same system as your perch. Not a coincidence. Contrast this to a few pike I kept from the same river last fall. Was worried they'd have worms too but they were clean, and oh so tasty.

I read that freezing them kills off the worms.

BigDaddyD wrote:I drove on at a friends private launch off 10th line. we stayed far south from the main city set up, and set up our holes in 10' water and 20" ice.

were you guys in a pick up with a pop up shelter and had a couple dogs with you?

Yes that was use.

i was the guy on the grey snowmobile that went past you a bunch of times because i kept forgetting stuff at home.
any chance any one was looking outside when i hit the big drift on one of my passes? lol.

No we missed it. Tunes might have been to loud in side Lol.
Next time you see the blue ram and the blue Clam stop in.
You can let me know where all the good spots are.
I'm Daryl
Or Big Daddy D LOL

clint wrote:i was the guy on the grey snowmobile that went past you a bunch of times because i kept forgetting stuff at home.
any chance any one was looking outside when i hit the big drift on one of my passes? lol.

I hit a drift in that same area on Saturday, it must have launched me 4ft in the air. The big ones are
hard to spot in the daytime, much easier at night with the headlites. My sled is a black and red sxviper, my shack is not to far from you lads.

Yupp gotta watch out for them drifts boys . I too always saw worms in most of my pannies/bass from that system & or similair styles of waterbodys, didnt worry me much but i tend to only keep pike/walleye for the eaters as they tend to have many less in my experience.
Tight Lines.

Same here on Lac-Ste-Marie last summer perch and bass were full of worms,not keeping them anymore.

Pretty tough to find any perch in our area that aren't wormy. If you can find a deep water Perch bite you'll be ok, not easy though. I know of only two.

RJ

I find the perch on the rideau to not be wormy. but it is a bigger body of water with more movement.
Ill be fishing Muskrat this weekend in deeper water so ill compare the body's of water and fish on sunday.

This lake has always had problems with the panfish being full of worms. Prolly because of how shallow it is. Anybody but driving out down at the large basin end.