I remember Reading on here years ago of guys going down to Montana for the Big Bows on the Reserve land down in Montana and others heading to Fort Peck. Not sure many go down to Montana for Perch.
My brother lives in Whitefish Montana now so I have another area to explore with tons of lakes and the locals do all the fish biology and stocking... so lets just say every fish seems to be in every lake, haha. Never know what you will catch from perch, crappie, lakers, pike, small mouth bass, largemouth bass, whitefish, kokanee, rainbows, browns, tiger muskie, cutts, brookies, sunfish.... list is pretty long and not too far if anyone looking for some more variety.
https://youtu.be/gWuJ4ces8y0?feature=shared
Got into some great Mountain Jumbo Perch when I was down a couple weeks ago and spawning kokanee.
I tell you this Patagonia Chartreuse colored jacket has some magical attraction power for Giant perch. You may not think so... but my brother has a way of popping the giants and making bright photos with this setup.
He was using the circle tackle PANFISH 36" ROD with the KY-1000 reel.
These perch have big appetites, and we found that they were interested in both tungsten jigs and jigging spoons. We used 7mm Tungsten Jigs on the Jigging Jaw Jacker and Stationary Jaw Jacker.
On our jigging rods the most success was on the Northland Tackle Rattle Buckshot Flutter Spoon.
While we located a large amount of spawning kokanee along the bottom we also found a few Jumbo Perch mixed in with the salmon. The perch are big eaters consuming minnows, crayfish and salmon eggs.
Our biggest perch of the day was a hair shy of 14" and a great specimen from a beautiful mountain lake south of the border. My brother Dallas is fortunate to live in an adventure paradise. When I'm along, we get to explore some lakes in the area.
There really is no shortage of places to fish and fish to catch.
The perch in this particular lake seem to be roaming alone, hunting bigger food items. While it is challenging to find these sparse fish, it is possible. Using a combination of Jaw Jackers and hole hopping we slowly dialed them in.
Good luck out there this year!