After several trips of perch chasing on the ice and having read a few posts about how long it takes to clean them. I thought I would chime in. We are not having a problem culling 9-10 inches perch with a few 11 and very occasional perch of 12”, no problem keeping as many as wanted in just a few hours. We are finding them shallow enough to release easily without air-bladder trauma. I have found the area of the lake does make a difference in size, overall they do seem a bit smaller in average than last year but still easy to keep a nice batch. This last trip we had to move several times to find the fish, a move as little as 20 yards made all the difference. At the first place we tried which was very close to previous trip Nada, moved a bit still nada moved again, nada moved 3rd time nothing moved again and then Bang first drop and every drop right away. We all relocated and it was pretty fast for 2 hours till we decided to quit we had what we culled to fillet and wanted to get home to watch football ?. The spot we settled on was only 50 yards from original spot no difference in depth, but first spot 0, final
Spot near non stop! As far as filleting the perch. We kept about 70 good ones for the three of us. I kept 23 and filleted them with Mr. Twister electric fillet knife and timed it. It was 15 minutes to fillet 23 perch, it just doesn’t take that long to clean them if you practice. Last year a buddy and I cleaned a bucket of 50 perch in 23 minutes, I slabbed with electric and he deboned with standard sharp fillet. We were rolling!  I will post video in a bit. Here’s a pic from earlier trip of some perch and trout and a batch of air fried coconut perch yumm. Got the link to video video added below .
This video is from earlier trip and smaller perch, 9-10 plus are even easier faster to fillet.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/08f1nOTP...qLG731C_YQ

Gave Weston a try for the first time yesterday, it has great/safe ice, with 3 inchs of snow. Lots of dinky perch
and a few decent bows.

Went to Flaming Gorge this weekend to participate in the Burbot Bash.  Was able to squeeze in about an hour of mac fishing in the boat before switching to burbot, and one dude on our boat hooked a dandy!  Didn't tape or weigh, but I would venture a guess at 40" and at least 25lbs.  
We jigged around the pipeline area against rock walls with the typical glow stuff tipped with sucker meat.  We only boated maybe a dozen fish the first night before calling it at about 9pm.  
Snowed Friday night and Saturday morning, so we switched gears to avoid and icy ramp disaster.  We ice fished a cove in the same area, from 20-60' depth.  One dude caught two nice bows about thirty seconds apart from each other in the afternoon. Started catching burbot around 5pm, but there was no consistent bite.  Between the 3 of us we iced less than 10.
There was no size to any of these fish.  The biggest caught was from the boat, and it was what I would have called the average size two or three years ago.  You know, 30" long and 2lbs kind of thing.  Most of the fish were small.
I talked to a DWR person when we were checking in the fish, and they confirmed that the average size is way down, which they say shows that the efforts in the reduction are working.  
All I know is I can't handle the cold like I used to could.  These folks that can pull an all nighter bouncing holes and not having to shack up (which you really need to do to effectively burbot fish through the ice) can have it!

Blah blah blah

We caught alot of perch off the East side. About anything we tossed in the water got bit. We were in 28-34 ft of water. Ice was 5-6 inches clear and solid. No slimers were harmed but a nice perch fry occurred later that day.

Video of my brother in-law with his young son getn it done and having fun. Best perch bite i have been part of at least as long as i can remember ice fishing.

https://youtu.be/oFXdOsv6udQ?si=IhvUko3ah35k0ulp

First thing, thank you Shawn also known as Elayo for joining us and providing the machines to get out on the ice. The roads were pretty sloppy especially on the way up in the morning and it was a little breezy but we all stayed warm in shelters. The catching was decent, the three young men I brought all caught fish 12,9 and 4. Juma and I caught a couple dozen each in our shelter, MWscott caught some in his shelter and Shawn’s boy was knocking them dead in Shawn shelter. I caught them on my favorite white with red flake gizzle tipped with salted chub it was a mixed bag of small rainbows and slot cutts. Thanks for joining us Mike as always good to fish with you. Sorry no pictures this time.

O! M! G!  This recipe is one of the very best fish dishes I have ever made.  If you have an Instant Pot, try this with your perch.  You will NOT be disappointed.  I will definitely be using some wipers in it come spring.  Stripper, walleye, and pike meat would be excellent choices as well.  

Instant Pot Mediterranean-Style Fish Stew (Low FODMAP, Whole30) - Good Noms, Honey!

Fished from 730-1230. Ice around the dam area was about 5". Can't say how it is further out but people walked across the lake and didn't go swimming. Caught a few smaller rainbows in the group and then this 27 incher. 

Twin has good ice and fair amount of nice bows, Winder was a no go with rotten shoreline ice, Treasureton has good ice and pretty good fishing for bows, Onieda Res has great ice and access but was slow fishing for me, Johnson has good ice but is very low some gills and bows, LaMont is very low and there are access problems with a new pipeline project, Foster has open water and iffy ice, these reports are for last 2 weeks, things change. Good luck

Thought for sure one of several BFTers I met up out from the new state park would post a report since they did better than I, but here goes......Shaved my first ice at 10:30, but by then the morning bite had pretty much dwindled.  One early bird got his limit today, saying he had to go to one rod when they came thru from 8-10, using a Hali/waxworm right off the bottom.  Meanwhile I was swiss-cheezing a fairly big area on that consistent 28' flat, looking for 'em.  Ended up with a dozen fatties, primarily during a 1:30 bite, getting one here, one there, all on eyeballs.  And tho there were still in that nice Rockport keeper range of 10", Echo's perch are heavier.  No comparison.  As I was packing up, a guy came out armed with FFS.  He set up in the same general area a dozen of us had all been fishing, and fan-scoped only one perch, so I didn't feel so bad.  Still, quite a humbling day after getting spoiled by 4 action-packed outings on RP, along with all of our hopes that an approaching front would really turn them on.  Hope to return Sun or Mon.

I spotted this at the Clinton Walmart this evening for anyone that wants ice bibs for there kids. $10 bibs.