The summer run salmon fishing on the upper Columbia is heating up. The triploid fishing on Rufus Woods continues to be red hot, and the walleye fishing has been good here, too. Being the contrary guy that I am, I decided to do something different.

I took my wife Eileen up to Fish Lake, near Lake Wenatchee. I had heard that the perch were biting and were pretty good size this year. What I had heard was right. It is possible to get 25-fish limits of perch that are a fat 9 inches at Fish Lake. This is something that many anglers look forward to each summer. I hadn't had a good perch feed since this past winter, when I had gotten them through the ice.

'The rivers are so high that I scratched the idea of gathering periwinkles and just fished with pieces of nightcrawler and did just fine. I cruised around looking at my Lowrance and when I spotted a bunch of perch on the bottom, and hit the Anchor Mode on my I-Pilot bow mount electric. I made sure that I had my sinker about three feet below my hook to avoid catching the bullheads, and went to work. The bite was pretty good and I brought home enough for a good meal for Eileen and me. It was really fun and the perch feed was fantastic!