"The perch will be hanging around on the sand at the base of the reefs," Roach said. "I'll be looking for the structure that doesn't rise too far off the bottom, and fishing the edges of that."

Roach said you can expect to find perch up to 13 inches long, and this year there will be plenty of them available to anglers.

For more information, call Gene's Sport Shop at (218) 346-3355. If you're planning on booking a place to stay, check out www.thumperpond.com.

FISH LAKE
Just south of Prior Lake is a 170-acre lake that grows big crappies. There aren't many slabs, but those that you find are respectable.

On Fish Lake, hit the ice in either early morning or evening right before sunset. There is not much basin in this small lake, but those crappies tend to hang out over the deep water in the middle. They will be schooled, so if you don't get your holes over the top of a group of crappies, you won't likely attract them with a glow lure or something shiny that you're jigging hard. You need to drill, search and find some fish so when that bite begins, you're on it.

You can expect big crappies when you get onto a school of biters. Fish up to a pound are not at all uncommon. The anglers who are regulars to this lake don't mess with crappie minnows, preferring instead the fatheads.

There is one sunken island on Fish Lake, and there will be anglers plying this structure, but they are likely chasing the walleyes. If you want the big crappies, you have to search them out because they suspend over the deepest regions of the lake.

For more information, call Prior Lake Bait and Tackle at (952) 447-6096.

PELICAN LAKE
I appreciate a lake where I can drop a tip-up 10 yards from the Fish Trap, jig with a airplane jig and fathead in the hole at my feet, and watch pike swim around my lures all day on the underwater camera. And if I keep a few 2 1/2-pound northerns for a fish fry, I don't feel guilty. This would be Pelican Lake just north of Avon in Stearns County.

Pelican Lake is rimmed on the west side by a bed of bulrushes, and the cabbage and coontail extend out past that into about 14 feet of water. The north side also has a nice weedy flat that butts up to a bulrush bed. Both of these regions hold plenty of pike.

I prefer to drill just inside the deep edge of the weeds because I like using an Aqua-Vu, and it's enjoyable to position the camera right at the tops of the coontail and watch the pike swim up to the bait. My trick is to drill a camera hole so I can not only watch the lure I'm jigging, but also watch the sucker I have struggling under the tip-up set close by. This works well in the clear water here.

For more information, call Louie's Bait Shop at (320) 251-8160.

LAKE ANN
Lake Ann is located right on the west edge of Chanhassen. This lake gets little summer pressure because no gas motors are allowed, and in the winter, no one thinks to go there. That's why the crappies and bluegills are so willing to bite.